My vote for mayor went to ...

& an interview with Shia Kapos of Politico's 'Illinois Playbook'

2-23-2023 (issue No. 76)

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above.

This week

• Last week’s winning tweet

• Why I voted for Chuy Garcia for mayor

• News and Views — Including broadsides at the Sun-Times and CWBChicago

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Meet Shia Kapos — An interview with one of Illinois’ most influential journalists

• An update on professor Jason Kilborn’s legal battle with the UIC Law School

• Mary Schmich — A love letter to her Facebook loverboys

• Why I read the Tribune and you should, too

• “The Mincing Rascals” preview

• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists

• Tune of the Week — “Multiply the Heartaches”

Last week’s winning tweet

Pru @prufrockluvsong

Mobster: Take Jack up the hill and make it look like an accident. Jill: You got it, boss.

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

Why I voted for Chuy Garcia for mayor

I write the Picayune Sentinel using templates, filling in blanks and gaps as the week goes along. Last week I generated this headline —

— to leave a space for this item explaining my decision, but left the name blank because I was still undecided. Even after watching most of the forums and reading many of the candidate profiles, I was still torn.

I couldn’t vote for Willie Wilson. I’ll stipulate that he’s a kind and generous man, but he’s too conservative and too politically shallow for me. The "Issues" page of his campaign website contains fewer than 300 words, most of them vague banalities on the order of "We need to help Chicagoans create the new post-pandemic normal. This means listening closely to citizens' needs and working together with inclusion as the guiding light to meet the unique needs of Chicago's diverse groups."

Ja’Mal Green may well be a future star in the Democratic Party. He was nimble and clever parrying with his opponents, but he needs more experience before jumping from activist to mayor.

Kam Buckner, Roderick Sawyer and, particularly, Sophia King impressed me as serious and capable candidates. I agreed with what Edward Robert McClelland wrote recently in Chicago Magazine:

Sophia King, the alderwoman of the 4th Ward, would make an excellent mayor of Chicago. Her approach to public safety is in the middle ground between Willie Wilson’s law-and-order “hunt them down like a rabbit” dictate, and Brandon Johnson’s “treatment not trauma” approach, which would require fewer officers. King is a politician who can bridge the city’s ethnic and ideological divides.

But I also agreed with the advice he dispensed in that same essay under the headline “Why You Should Vote Strategically in the Mayoral Election.” King doesn’t have the money or the traction in the polls to win. Neither does Buckner, Sawyer or Green. A principled vote for any of them would be purely symbolic. And since Chicago doesn’t (yet!) have a ranked-choice voting system, symbolic votes are wasted.

Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas is looking more and more like a lock to make the top-two runoff election five weeks after next Tuesday. Vallas is too far right, too Republican-adjacent for me, especially when it comes to his enthusiasm for privatizing public education through voucher programs.

So I asked myself: Which of the other three candidates in the field, all of whom I’d support over Vallas, would be most likely to beat him in the runoff?

Incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot? I’ve been disappointed in her. I find her attack ads on Garcia to be dishonest to the point of sleazy, and her abrasive style counterproductive to achieving her goals, many of which I find laudable. Chicago needs a change at the top.

Cook County Commissioner and Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson? He’s the most charismatic of the final three but also the furthest to the left. I don’t particularly mind that he’s championing progressive tax and spending proposals that could easily backfire, as I doubt he’d get them through the City Council. But as much as I’m a fan of unions and a fan of teachers, I’m uneasy with the CTU being essentially on both sides of the bargaining table at contract time should Johnson be elected, and I suspect his views on police funding are not right for the political moment.

That left Democratic U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia, who has run a humdrum campaign, much as he did in 2015 when he pushed incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff. I’m not at all bothered by the support that alleged crypto crook Samuel Bankman-Fried offered his campaign or the other weak accusations of corrupt ties launched by Lightfoot. But I am bothered by his uninspiring, weak-sauce, anodyne, evasive answers to questions.

Check these from the Sun-Times written candidate survey:

Q: Would you broaden the city sales tax to include professional services to match the growing shift to a service-oriented economy?

Garcia: I will always look to expand and broaden our essential services without placing a burden on taxpayers.

Q: Would you support increasing funding to address homelessness by raising the real estate transfer tax on properties valued at more than $1 million?

Garcia: I believe housing is a human right. I fought hard in Congress to secure funds for rental assistance and homeowner assistance as well as eviction protections. And as an urban planner I recognize how important housing is to create thriving communities and families.

Q: Do you support limiting the control alderpersons have over zoning in their wards?

Garcia: I would work with the incoming City Council to reform rather than approaching it with the combative style we've seen from the mayor. Collaboration means concessions from everyone including the mayor.

Q: Do you support creating a more independent city council by allowing it to choose its own committee chairs without mayoral interference, set its own committee agendas and allow the Council to have its own attorney, its own parliamentarian and City Council speaker and president?

Garcia: My administration will focus on collaboration and will not have a combative and contentious relationship with the city council allowing things to actually get done.

That is some epic argle-bargle right there.

Could I really vote for a mealy-mouthed candidate like Garcia? My wife and I were still talking it over Tuesday on our way to vote early (we’ll be in Savannah on Election Day). In the end, I was swayed by the result of the recent, independent Victory Research poll showing that, in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Garcia would stand the best chance against Vallas, losing by just 5 percentage points, with 17% undecided.

Lightfoot’s new digital ad claims she’s best positioned to beat Vallas head to head, but the poll shows otherwise: It shows Lightfoot losing to Vallas by 19 percentage points and Johnson and Wilson losing by 13 percentage points. The margin of error is 3.45%, and fully 44% of respondents said they could still change their minds before next week’s election.

So I backed Garcia, but not with any gusto. Do not consider this an endorsement, rather a resigned admission. And I was glad that Johanna split the difference with me by voting for Johnson.

For what it’s worth, here is my prediction for the top five:

Vallas 25%
Garcia 19%
Johnson 18%
Lightfoot 16%
Wilson 13% 
(all others 9%)

I’m opening up the comments section this week to all readers to allow anyone who wishes to post their predictions, with percentages, for the top five in an election that looks especially unpredictable.

I’ll determine a winner after the results are official enough to do so. He or she will win a free (or additional) six-month subscription to Club Picayune Plus, the paid subscriber level that receives the bonus issue by email each week, has commenting privileges and enjoys the deep satisfaction of supporting this publication.

News & Views

News: In a front-page story Tuesday, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza accused Mayor Lori Lightfoot of “failing Mendoza’s brother and other Chicago cops by instructing her appointees to a police pension board to vote against approving a ‘duty disability’ that would provide pay and health insurance to officers facing career-ending COVID-19 complications.”

Views: I’m surprised and disappointed that the Sun-Times so uncritically amplified this political attack one week before the election. As the story says, it was one year ago Friday that the Chicago police pension board voted 4-3 to deny Sgt. Joaquin Mendoza duty disability (75% of his salary and free health care) and instead awarded him ordinary disability (50% of his salary, no health care).

Sgt. Mendoza “was hospitalized for 72 days and lost the use of his kidneys and his left arm after contracting COVID-19” in November 2020, before preventative vaccines were available, according to his lawyers quoted in the story.

It’s difficult to impossible to be sure exactly who passed the virus on to whom given the delay in onset of symptoms. But while the presumption that a police officer contracted the virus on the job is tenuous, we can’t in good conscience ask officers to interact with the public as they must during a period of viral contagion without granting them that presumption and providing them line-of-duty protections.

So I disagree with the pension board’s ruling in this case.

Since then, the board has denied a duty disability for another officer who got COVID-19. At least 18 other Chicago police officers have similar requests pending, according to Mendoza’s attorneys.

But I also disagree that there is a proven nexus to Lightfoot to justify this layout on the front page of the Sun-Times:

“It was the mayor and her hand-picked board that made this decision knowingly,” says Susana Mendoza in the story.

Yes, three Lightfoot appointees voted not to grant duty disability. But “Michael Stiscak, a police lieutenant who isn’t a Lightfoot appointee, also voted ‘no,’” providing the decisive vote.

The story quotes a written statement from Lightfoot’s staff: “The mayor is not involved in any pension board decisions, nor would it have been ethical or appropriate for her to involve herself in any such decisions.”

Mendoza’s counter: “Anyone who knows anything about how those pension funds run knows that the mayoral appointees work only at the behest of the mayor and take their marching orders from the mayor.”

The story then offers this paragraph:

Eugene Roy, a former Chicago Police chief of detectives and former pension board member during Richard M. Daley’s administration, said he heard from sources that “the order came down from City Hall that no one is to get a duty disability for COVID.”

You’re printing what a source said unnamed sources told him? This is why God gave us red pencils, Sun-Times editors.

Not only did this outrageous vote happen a full year ago, but in the story, Susana Mendoza recounts having had a brief conversation about the matter on March 8, 2022, in which “Lightfoot asked whether she could ‘try to fix it.’”

“And I told her, ‘You can’t fix it. The decision is made,’” Mendoza said. “She asked me why I didn’t call her. I told her that I thought that was inappropriate for me to have to call and let her know about my brother going before the board, that I didn’t want any special favors for my brother.”

The Tribune’s follow-up story posted Tuesday evening — under the headline “Lightfoot defends police pension board against criticism it unfairly denied cops with COVID full disability benefits” — was more balanced, and included this:

On deciding to speak out about this just before Election Day, Mendoza said “the timing is dictated by the courts,” an apparent reference to a recent court ruling against her brother.

That court ruling was on Jan. 30, three weeks before Mendoza went public with her charge againts Lightfoot.

In short, a year-old story became a pre-election hit on the mayor based on supposition and innuendo.

News: HBO cancels “South Side” after three seasons

View: Johanna and I have only recently started watching this highly acclaimed show shot in Chicago, and I agree with the show publicist who said it "balanced cutting, hyperlocal social commentary about life on the South Side of Chicago with silly, sometimes zany humor. The result was a wholly unique, ambitious and fearless comedy." Watch the two-minute trailer.

I agree with those who say that the sharp, often absurd social satire is reminiscent of “Portlandia,” which lasted eight seasons (2011-2018) on IFC.

The casting is interesting. Sultan Salahuddin, who plays a lead role as Simon, is the brother of show creator Bashir Salahuddin, who plays police Officer Goodnight opposite his real-life wife, Chandra Russell, the cheerfully corrupt Sgt. Turner. Simon’s best buddy, Kareme, is played by Kareme Young, whose identical twin, Quincy, plays Simon and Kareme’s boss, Quincy.

There are a total of 28 episodes. We’re only eight episodes in so can’t yet say if we’ll be wanting more when we get to the end. Sometimes it’s best when shows are canceled before they lose their luster. But sometimes its just a gut-punch to fans.

News: CWB headline says, “Lincoln Park man, 73, opens fire on catalytic converter thieves.”

View: We can argue at another time whether it’s a good idea for citizens to try to ventilate these evildoers. But my reaction here is to the gratuitous use of the man’s age in the headline.

I could see the relevance if this confrontation had been a fistfight, as the presumption that young cat’ thieves would be stronger and quicker than a septuagenarian is reasonable. Reporters, headline writers and their editors don’t often enough ask themselves why age is a relevant bit of information, and what stereotypes listing an age are intended to summon. I’m not saying age is always irrelevant; I’m just asking journalists to take a beat and ask themselves why they’re including it.

News: The movie “Cocaine Bear” is out this week.

View: The stories about this darkly comic film mention it’s the brainchild of screenwriter Jimmy Warden, who grew up in Chicago. What they don’t mention is that Jimmy is the son of legendary Chicago journalist Rob Warden and Jennifer Alter Warden, the chief operating officer and executive vice president of Baird & Warner. That makes him the grandson of Joanne Alter (1927- 2008), the influential former metropolitan water district commissioner who paved the way for women in local politics, and her husband, James Alter (1922-2014), a business leader and political power player. Jimmy Warden is also the nephew of author, TV pundit, Substacker and columnist Jonathan Alter.

Land of Linkin’

• Another special offer: Last week’s special offer to Picayune Sentinel readers — a free, no-strings-attached subscription to “Chicago Public Square” — was such a hit I’m making another offer this week: A free, no-strings-attached subscription to Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg’s always diverting “Every Goddamn Day.” Now, yes, true, it’s a free publication, but if you simply click this link to email me, I’ll handle all the details and get you on the list.

• Speaking of Steinberg, “Amara Enyia is fighting all problems everywhere.” was Neil’s piece on the former mayoral hopeful I wrote about last week.

• “Do masks work?” explores the research behind a question on a lot of minds. The answer is very detailed but ends on the unsatisfying note of “it depends.”

• List of entertainers who died during a performance (Wikipedia)

• The thoroughly disquieting New York Times’ article “Bing’s A.I. Chat Reveals Its Feelings: ‘I Want to Be Alive’” was the first major article showing how weird and human-like Microsoft’s new chatbot appears to be in conversation. In a later Associated Press article, the chatbot “grew increasingly hostile when asked to explain itself, eventually comparing the reporter to dictators Hitler, Pol Pot and Stalin and claiming to have evidence tying the reporter to a 1990s murder. ‘You are being compared to Hitler because you are one of the most evil and worst people in history,’ Bing said, while also describing the reporter as too short, with an ugly face and bad teeth.”

• “A science fiction magazine closed submissions after being bombarded with stories written by ChatGPT.” (Fast Company)

• Don’t get the Tuesday Picayune Plus delivered? Then you might have missed “My apology to and debate with Charles Thomas” and “More mail about the Trib’s subscription practices.”

• Freddie DeBoer takes a careful look at “The Enduring Mystery of ‘Friends.’” He writes, “The show does not merely lack edge, it appears so resistant to anything appearing edgy that it’s content to exist as a shapeless blob that comments on nothing beyond the inane chatter of the characters and their constant low-stakes dramas. … It’s a cultural object that exists outside of culture.”

• “Abortion pill extremists are disingenuous absolutists” — a strong editorial in the Tribune attacked a lawsuit filed in Texas asking a federal judge to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s approval 23 years ago of a drug used in abortions induced by medications: “The most cynical aspect of the lawsuit is its false claim that mifepristone is unsafe, and women need to be protected from it. The anti-abortion activists behind this litigation couldn’t care less about the health and welfare of women who want the pill for abortions. Their goal is to set up as many roadblocks as possible, no matter the suffering their tactics might cause to those most directly involved.”

• I abashedly recommend “The Real `Catch Me If You Can,’” an eight-part podcast series detailing the extended hoax that Frank Abagnale Jr. pulled that suckered in moviemaker Steven Spielberg and scores of journalists who credulously retold his story of pulling off spectacular hoaxes, such as successfully posing as an airline pilot. I say “abashedly” because, in the early 1980s, I was one of the journalists who interviewed Abagnale and uncritically wrote up an account of his book. That naive profile does not surface in a Google search, thank goodness.

• I haven’t listened yet so I can’t offer a recommendation as such, but I suspect that “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” a multipart podcast that dropped its first two episodes Tuesday, will be much discussed. You may be asked for your opinion at the next cocktail party you attend.

• In “A terrible tenth anniversary — The 2013 mass closure of 50 schools scarred Chicago,” former Chicago Public Fools blogger Julie Vassilatos begins looking back at a decision that roiled the city. I didn’t cover this issue when it was happening, and I’m interested in the reflections of those who continue to defend the decision. At the same time, I don’t think it’s an easy call to continue to operate huge buildings with tiny student populations simply in the name of community cohesion. I’m wary of anyone who claims this is a simple case of right and wrong.

• I received many messages and letters about “mondegreens,” or misheard lyrics, and rather than reprint them, I’ll direct interested readers to “Kiss This Guy, the archive of misheard of lyrics.”

• The Picayune Sentinel preview: Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Meet Shia Kapos

Political news junkies and informed citizens throughout Chicago and Illinois start their day by reading "Illinois Playbook." It's a comprehensive political newsletter written by Shia Kapos that hits inboxes Monday through Friday a little after 7 a.m. Since 2018, Kapos has been both covering and driving the local news cycle as one of the most influential reporters in the state. I spoke with her for about an hour earlier this month on WCPT-AM. This is a revised, edited transcript of our conversation. 

Eric Zorn: Tell me a little bit more about yourself. Where'd you grow up? What did you folks do? 

Shia Kapos: I grew up in a little farming community outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, and I’m the daughter of public school teachers. Our household was really focused on education. We were big newspaper readers. We used to sit around the table, my three sisters and my parents and I, and talk about what was in the papers.

My dad was a high school teacher. My mom taught elementary school. But they both focused on special education. There weren’t special ed classes as such back then. But if you were a kid who showed signs of learning disabilities, they put you into classrooms with teachers like my parents who had degrees in special education and worked to keep those students in the school system. 

EZ: Were your sisters older or younger? 

SK: They're all younger, and they’re all in Utah now, so the dynamics of our relationship have changed. I was always the bossy organized one, but because I'm not there, they’ve taken charge, and now I do whatever I’m told when I’m back home. 

EZ: So take us back. You're a kid. You're reading newspapers. Were you thinking you wanted to be a journalist? 

 SK: I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. But I worked on my high school newspaper, and I really enjoyed it. And I worked on the yearbook staff, and I enjoyed that. I loved putting together the whole thing, whether it was the newspaper for the week or the yearbook. When I was a senior in high school, I applied to the Salt Lake Tribune.And I got a letter back from the editor saying, “Thank you very much, but we don't hire 17-year-olds.” So then I went off to the University of Utah.

EZ: And were you studying journalism?

SK: Yes, I was studying journalism.

EZ: And working on the Daily Utahan or whatever they called the student paper?

SK: Close. The Daily Utah Chronicle. Then I got a call one day from the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune. I had turned 18, and he said, “I'd like to interview you.” I went downtown. I had just gotten a car, it was a stick shift. And I didn't know how to drive it very well. And it was very stressful. I got to the interview. It's like a 2:30 p.m. interview. And, I don't even remember how it went. But at the end, he said, “OK,” and he took me to the newspaper library — this was before newspapers archived everything online — and he showed me where they kept the clips, how they indexed them, where the phones were. Then he said, “And here are the women you’ll be working with.” Then he had me work a full shift. 

Later I got promoted to be the indexer. So that meant I was like Google back then. I went through the entire paper and indexed everything — names, places, subjects — and put the clips into little envelopes. That's how I started. I did that through college. And then after graduation I got a job working as a copy editor and did a little reporting for about a year before my husband, Peter, and I moved to San Francisco where I was a radio reporter. I don't really have a voice for radio, but I learned a lot doing that. 

 EZ: You met your husband in college?

(continue reading the interview)

Update on the Jason Kilborn story

Jason Kilborn is the University of Illinois at Chicago Law School professor who was suspended and put into a reeducation program after he used a redacted form of a racial slur on the final exam he gave his students in his Civil Procedure II class in December 2020. Rather than even try to summarize the entire, absurd story, I’ll direct you to my previous coverage:

• The ongoing saga at UIC over a certain word

• Dissenting views on the controversy at UIC Law

• UIC employs ‘N-word’ to teach a professor a lesson about redacted slurs

• George Will rips UIC School of Law a new one

Kilborn sued the school, and last week ,U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis released a 36-page opinion and order granting in part and denying in part UIC’s motion to dismiss the suit.

I asked Kilborn to translate the opinion into layman’s language. He wrote:

My suit advanced essentially 5 theories:

(1) My First Amendment rights were violated when UIC retaliated against me for several snippets of speech, most notably my exam question.

(2) That UIC’s “harassment” policy was/is so vague (UIC diversity officials get to decide arbitrarily and capriciously in any given case what “harassment” means) as to be unconstitutional and void, and that it was applied without any due process, both of which violated my Fifth Amendment rights.

(3) That the named defendants defamed me by spreading lies and half-truths to the entire UIC community and the world via their demonstrably false reports of their sham “investigation,” email and web pages.

(4) That the UIC defendants cast me in a “false light” with the same demonstrably false and/or perverted half-truths, which they knew or should have known were false and/or perverted.

(5) That the UIC defendants intentionally caused me horrible emotional distress through all of this.

After nearly a year of delay, the court released an opinion on the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case on a number of largely technical bases. The opinion granted their dismissal motion only in small part and in a way that we can fix to revive the most important core of our original claims (and likely add further ones that have come to light in the last year). …

(Read Kilborn’s entire summary of the opinion here.)

Screen shot of one of Mary Schmich’s “Facebook loverboys”

Mary Schmich: A love letter to all my Facebook loverboys

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is her most recent offering:

Inspired by the “men” who post on my Facebook page and other women’s too. The photo above and those on Facebook are screenshots from my page. Apologies if any of these dashing gentlemen is real.

Dearest darling Facebook lovers,

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love your fake Facebook profiles, the b.s. of your flirty bios, the lies behind your photos.

I love, love, love your fancy cars, especially the ones with foreign license plates. I love your bare chests and your bow ties. Whoo boy, bring me a fan, cause you make me so, so HOT.

But you know what I love more? Your boats. Your VERY, VERY BIG BOATS. Amazing how many of you are showing off your boats in your Facebook photos, though, honestly, I’d be more impressed by a bicycle.

I love how many of you are “widowed”, and I would be sorry for your loss if I believed for a nanosecond you were real.

Oh, and I LUV how many of you are soldiers. Or surgeons. Or military surgeons. Amazing how many of you have served in Kabul!

Speaking of love. I luv, luv, luv the comments you leave on my posts, in which you tell me I am so beautiful, so smart, so intriguing. That, my dearest darling Facebook lovers, is perhaps the only thing you've written that I'm sure is true!

I simply adore how many of you are into traveling and cooking and investments. But all that golf? Get a grip, guys.

Forgive me, darling lovers, if I wonder if you invented your Facebook names. Or stole them. Please. Don’t hate me for my doubts. Love always comes with a flicker of wariness, does it not?

Alas, my darlings, your English is often a little off. And I regret to say that turns me off. Can I tell you a little secret? Come closer and let me whisper in your ear: You know what’s sexier to me than a VERY, VERY BIG BOAT? Good grammar. And knowing the difference between “compliment” and “complement.”

Darlings, I’m sorry if I’m sounding a little critical. So let me boost your ego by assuring you: I LUV it when you ask me about the weather, which you so often do. I love weather too!

But dearest darling Facebook loverboys, may I ask you a favor? If you really love me, grant me this one teeny weeny wish: GET OFF MY FACEBOOK PAGE!

Smooch, smooch.

Mary

Why I read the Tribune and you should, too

I snipe at Alden Global Capital/Tribune Publishing for their unconscionably opaque and exploitive subscription practices not because I want to undermine my former employer, but because I want to shame them into doing better. And because not to do so would be to betray my goal of calling bullshit when I see bullshit. I’m willing to entertain and publish the excuses of those in the media who turn a blind eye to these predatory practices. Write to me!

I remain an enthusiastic subscriber to and supporter of the Tribune, however, and City Hall reporter Gregory Pratt explained neatly why in a special edition of Daywatch this week:

We want to be accurate, fair and reveal truths about how your tax dollars are spent and why.

Over the weekend, we wrote about the city’s racial politics and Lightfoot telling people who don’t support her not to vote. We scrutinized Brandon Johnson’s support from the teachers union and what it could mean for city schools. In recent weeks, we’ve reported on Paul Vallas’s record, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s ties to indicted former Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan and the ethical issues Willie Wilson’s cash giveaways pose. And we’ve taken deep dives into critical issues including finances, schools, transportation, crime and police reform.

Election Day is a week away. I don’t know who’s going to win. But I do know we’ll keep bringing you important stories that shed light on the candidates and their potential impact on the city we love, no matter who it angers.

Minced Words

I think “Mayoral challenger Paul Vallas has promoted his schools resume, but blemishes garner scrutiny,” a lengthy story by the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt and Ray Long that posted this week, was an excellent, balanced if slightly tardy look at Vallas’ record in government and education.*

Mark Guarino, one of my fellow panelists on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast, thought it was a “lightweight hit piece.”

Hear us discuss that, other issues in the mayor’s race and more with host John Williams and former Tribune metro editor Mark Jacob. Subscribe to the Rascals wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can now hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

*Some friends have pointed out that the quote from Vallas that concludes the article disqualifies him:

Public service has always been my priority. I’ve thought of nothing else, and that’s what I’ve always done. My reputation is what it is. I’ve always given my all, which is why some of the jobs have literally killed me.

If the jobs have literally killed him, then he is dead, and though the joke is that dead people can vote in Chicago, they can’t be elected mayor or even alderperson. And if Vallas is still alive, as evidence suggests, then he has misused the word “literally,” which is a dismaying error from an educrat.

Re: Tweets

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor and so can’t be included in the classic Tweet of the Week contest in which the template for the poll does not allow the use of images. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:

Last week’s winner was inadvertently left off the email:

And here’s a visual tweet I simply wanted to share:

The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:

• Religious folk sometimes ask atheists whose name they call out during sex, as if they've never even heard of Arthur C Clarke. — @wildethingy

• I've noticed many of my friends are in The Grapefruit Window, which means they're old enough to enjoy eating grapefruit but not yet on medication that prevents them from eating grapefruit. — @celestelabedz

• Me: Knowing everything we do about medicine and health, I can’t believe people still smoke!! Also me: Is four boxes of Swiss Cake Rolls enough for the weekend? — @_ugh_whatnow

• If you wear your old prom dress to the pharmacy, they'll fill your prescription for antidepressants faster. — @SCbchbum

• Using AI to craft an argument for why I shouldn’t be suspended for using AI to write a report. I can do this all day. — @ericzhu105

• I hate it when people humble brag about where they went to college. I have this friend who went to Harvard and she just won't shut up about it. She's always been like that, even when we were in college together. — @SundaeDivine

• We've designed you a new phone 007. It's exactly the same as your old phone but you'll need to buy a new charger. — @stevenseagull98

• Bumbling scientist whose experiments all end up yielding abominations of nature: “Aw shucks, what the heck is this thing? Not again.” — @camerobradford

•  “Living well is the best revenge.” Do you know how hard that is?? That’s like a 75-year commitment to revenge. I’m just gonna stab them with a fork. — @TheAndrewNadeau

• Yesterday our neighborhood hairdresser was arrested for selling drugs.  I was her customer for 10 years.  I had no idea she was a hairdresser.  — Various

Vote here in the poll and check the current results. For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Tune of the Week

I just love these old country songs. That may be where you and I differ, but, come on, this is a good one:

A little bit of clever wordplay, a simple cry of romantic despair and George and Melba. A recipe for perfection.

Subtract one love and multiply the heartaches
Divide the tears by every time a heart breaks
The answer only tells that it's too late
Subtract one love and multiply the heartaches

The song was released and recorded by Kathy Dee in 1961 as “Subtract His Love (And Multiply Your Heartaches).” George Jones and Melba Montgomery covered it in 1963 and took gender designations out of the lyrics.

Kathy Dee was the stage name of singer Kathleen Dearth. She died in 1968 at age 55.

Jones, who later wrote that his duets with Montgomery were the finest he ever recorded, died at 81 in 2013. Montgomery, 84, is still alive.

Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!

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