How`s this for new math? The Chicago Board of Education-the one that didn`t have any money to offer teachers raises without laying off a bunch of folks, including teachers-just spent $1.2 million to provide all 6th, 7th and 8th graders with pocket calculators to use in math classes. And, yes, this is the same school system where teachers regularly complain about shortages of books and other supplies. Guess we`re talking progress.
THE COP SHOP . . .
Add Leroy O`Shield, deputy aviation commissioner, to the list of those who`d like to be the city`s new top cop. O`Shield is the guy who wore a wire to catch bribe-happy livery and taxicab scammers out at O`Hare International Airport.
FLASH FROM THE PAST . . .
After Philadelphia labor bosses mustered support for striking NFL players the second Sunday of the strike, Chicago Tribune reporter Jim Strong recalled a 1974 chat with AFL-CIO President George Meany, now deceased. The crusty labor chief, who was being pressured into recognizing the football players`
association as an AFL-CIO union, put it this way: ”The $250,000-a-year player doesn`t need a union; what he needs is a good lawyer. Now, do you think for one moment that these players are going to honor a picket line of a beer vendor or the electricians in a ballpark? They would like fun.”
TENSE, WHO`S TENSE?
Mayor Harold Washington had some things to say last week about complaints from Ald. Ed Eisendrath (43d) that the Chicago City Council has delayed committee hearings on the school system. Mainly, he noted that he`d advise Eisendrath to ”relax, son, you`re in bad, bad shape.” But the mayor`s paternalistic moment followed these observations about the 43d Ward`s freshman alderman: ”That little —- just got here two weeks ago. What`s he talking about? Wow. This little cat, you know what he`s independent of?” He went on a while longer. Now who needs to relax?
GETTING EVEN . . .
Despite rumors being circulated by some Republicans, sources in Washington, D.C., tell INC. that the White House has given no indication that Illinois` chances to land the superconducting supercollider project are in jeopardy. The state`s chances to land the supercollider, according to rumor, were hurt by the refusal of both Illinois senators, Alan Dixon and Paul Simon, to support the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert Bork. But INC. sources say it ain`t so.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS . . .
The hostess of a Los Angeles radio program canceled her scheduled phone interview with Tammy Faye Bakker when she was told that there were only two things she`d consent to discuss, and Jessica Hahn and how much PTL money the Bakkers spent were not on the list. What was: Tammy`s upcoming single, and the inspirational 900 number fans can call and enrich the Bakkers` bankbook by about $1.95 per call. . . . Kim Carnes was scheduled to make a guest appearance on ”Throb” last week but walked off the set before the taping began. A spokeswoman for the show said there has been ”quite a bit of miscommunication, and Kim didn`t find out what music she`d be singing until the day before the taping.” Kim said through a spokesman, ”What I agreed to and what was going on when I arrived on the set were two completely different things. I was feeling extremely uncomfortable, so I exited stage left.”
OPERATIC TENURE . . .
Evanston`s Nancy Gustafson, who has spent the last several years performing in operas all over the world, finally returns to Chicago for her Lyric Opera debut this month in three performances of ”Faust.” . . . A customer approached the Lyric Opera box office recently to find out if there were any of the less expensive seats still available for ”Satyagraha,” the very unconventional Philip Glass opera that`s performed in Sanskrit. When the guy was told there were no more inexpensive seats available, he asked why and was told: ”When all the kids with purple hair found out what the show was about and who wrote it, they ran in and scarfed up the cheap seats.”
STAGE STUFF . . .
Radio City Music Hall`s first Rockettes audition in three years will be held this month in New York. . . . Chicago entrepreneur and calorie counter Margo Chapman has commissioned former Chicagoan Brian Lasser to write the music and lyrics for a musical based on the life of another famous
entrepreneur. If all goes as scheduled (and it seldom does), they`re shooting for a fall 1988 opening in New York.
INC.LINGS . . .
Monday birthdays: Dick Gregory, 55; Luciano Pavarotti, 52; Susan Anton, 37; Joan Rivers, 54. . . . The public relations director for Teleklew productions, Lawrence Welk`s umbrella corporation, says the repair and service problems being experienced by the residents of Santa Monica`s Champagne Towers, reported last month in INC., are no longer Welk`s responsibility. He sold the building last year. A one-and-a-two-and-a-sorry, Lawrence.
