Blocking the way to O'Hare is no way to win hearts and minds

& will the White Sox be historically bad in 2024?

4-18-2024 (issue No. 137)

This week:

• A promo for my Thursday afternoon guest-hosting stint on WCPT-AM

• Last week’s winning tweets — Regular and Dad divisions

• Deliberately inconveniencing drivers is no way to win them over to your side

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked on open contract talks with public school teachers, the potential Biden-Trump debates, ShotSpotter, criticism of COPA’s head, and Jewish leaders who refuse even to sit down and talk with Mayor Johnson

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

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• Mary Schmich — On clouds

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week

• Quotables

• Re:Tweets — The winning visual tweet and this week’s contest finalists

• Good Sports — On keeping expectations in check for the Chicago Sky and on the White Sox bid for history

• Tune of the Week — “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley

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. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

The guest host with the most

Well maybe not “the most,” but some. I will be sitting in Thursday afternoon from 2-5 p.m. for WCPT-AM 820’s Joan Esposito. Listen live here:

Last week’s winning tweets

I’m really mad about how fast my life went from MySpace to MyChart. — unknown

We also had a bonus “Dad Tweets” poll consisting mostly of groaners. The winner there, by a scratchy chin whisker, was:

A recent study found that six of the seven dwarfs aren’t happy. 

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

‘You’ve made me miss my flight, but you have caused me to see the justice in your cause. Not’

Chanting “No business as usual!” pro-Palestinian protesters block I-190 leading to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Monday

The question of what sorts of protests are effective and which sorts are counterproductive is going to loom large in Chicago this summer before and during the Democratic National Convention here in mid-August. The convention itself promises to be a dull, relatively news-free gathering of like-minded politicos, so attention will turn to the streets and parks where protesters will be clamoring for attention in various ways, hoping to change minds and advance their causes.

Monday’s “Coordinated Blockade to Free Palestine” that included a prolonged shutdown of the I-190 access road to O'Hare International Airport, looks like a sampling of what’s to come, to judge from the organization’s manifesto:

In each city we will identify and blockade major choke points in the economy, focusing on points of production and circulation with the aim of causing the most economic impact, as did the port shutdowns in recent months in Oakland, California and Melbourne, Australia, as just a few examples.

There is a sense in the streets in this recent and unprecedented movement for Palestine that escalation has become necessary: There is a need to shift from symbolic actions to those that cause pain to the economy. As Yemen is bombed to secure global trade, and billions of dollars are sent to the Zionist war machine, we must recognize that the global economy is complicit in genocide and together we will coordinate to disrupt and blockade economic logistical hubs and the flow of capital.

Airport operations experienced delays of only about 15 minutes, but an untold number of ordinary travelers missed their flights. Others were unable to make timely pickups. And, I’ve got to say, if I had been one of them, my sympathies for the cause that animates the protesters would likely have dropped precipitously, as it would have if I’d been significantly inconvenienced by similar actions around the country that day.

I posted a short video clip of the protest to Twitter along with the question, “Does this make you more or less likely to support or sympathize with their cause?”

Most of the responses were variations on “less likely,” which I suspected, but I did get into this back and forth with @DeadpanNick —“dad. spouse. rustic. humorist. tweetsman. time-lapse thinker. gambler. vibes. vapes. cats. psychics. metaphysics. road trips,” — that went like this:

Nick: It's not about me. …. It is a disruption of a system. A very broken system. It's meant to infuriate and judging by the replies (on the thread), did its job.

Zorn: Infuriate at whom, though? You think those people who missed their flights are going to be all like, "golly, those people who fucked up my life must have a point. I’m with them now!"?

Nick: They're not trying to stir mass sentiment. …It's an attempt to stir the sentiments of the people who actually have the power to do something about it.

Zorn: How does it "stir the sentiments" of, say, a representative in Congress when her office is flooded with calls from people who are very angry about missing their flights or their doctor's appointments or whatever, because protesters see them as pawns? You think that strategy works?

Nick: It has worked for thousands of years. Especially during the civil rights movement. Justice is painful. And part of the protest is about the notion that to continue with our way of life as we are is to be complicit in atrocities. These sorts of protests are designed to slow humanity down and get us to think about how we live. That's a hard thing, but not a bad thing.

Zorn: Really, though? Demonstrations and protests have proven effective, but I can't think of an example of when deliberately slowing down uninvolved people trying to go about their lives has enhanced a cause by forcing them to think about how they live and thus changing their minds.

Nick: I don't know that it always works or is always well conceived, but as a tactic it is nonviolent, which stands in direct contrast to what it is protesting.

Mass gatherings and marches are inherently disruptive, and the right to assemble and speak is too precious to prioritize keeping every street and sidewalk clear so as not to inconvenience anyone ever. Inconvenience for uninvolved bystanders is often a consequence of a significant protest, and that’s just life in a society that values freedom of expression.

But when it is the purpose of a protest, the inconveniencing becomes a form of hostage taking, though admittedly and thankfully nonviolent, as Nick observes. Those people in their cars on the access highway to O’Hare were effectively prisoners in their cars, though some were able to get out and walk to the airport.

And deliberately inconveniencing people strikes me as no more likely to be an effective tool for political change than vandalizing businesses, burning American flags or waving bloody-fetus photos and screaming insults at women entering abortion clinics.

Generally they seem likely to harden or even inflame the hearts of those who have different views, and to repel those who might otherwise be receptive to the position being espoused.

When it comes to the Democratic National Convention, many of the lefty protesters hoping to get a share of the media attention that will be focused on the city don’t seem to have gamed out the potential consequences of discouraging people from voting to reelect President Joe Biden. All that will do is enhance the prospects of a return to the White House of Donald Trump, and I can’t think of a single lefty or progressive cause — especially the “Free Palestine” cause — that would be better advanced by Trump than Biden.

I very much support protest, but it ought to have a strategy; an end game in mind. OK, you’ve made sure Bill and Martha missed an old friend’s birthday dinner in Omaha. Now what?

News & Views

News: The Chicago Teachers Union wants to negotiate its new contract with the city in public rather than behind closed doors, which is how it’s always been done.

View: When a public body is engaged in conversations about how to spend public money, the public ought to have a seat in the audience. Chalkbeat Chicago has a good summary:

[Union President Stacy Davis Gates] said that the public sessions can only happen if the Chicago Public Schools agrees. A CPS spokesperson said the district “looks forward to learning more” about CTU’s request to publicly bargain. A representative for City Hall did not immediately return a request for comment. …

There is some precedent. In Colorado, state law requires teachers’ contract negotiations to be done in public. In Chicago, with a union-friendly mayor who drew heavy support from the CTU on the campaign trail, contract negotiations this year may not result in a long battle or lead to a strike, as they have in past years under former mayors Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot.

However, bargaining will occur as the district is deciding how to close a $391 million budget deficit as federal COVID dollars run out. That challenge raises questions about how many costly demands CPS can commit to.

In 2018, the Canadian magazine Briarpatch took along look at the question, “Should unions say no to closed-door negotiations?”

Jessica Wender-Shubow is president of the Brookline Educators Union in Massachusetts, another union that is moving toward open negotiation. She’s a supporter, but she’s faced arguments against the model.

“The concern about open bargaining is it all becomes about posturing,” she says, acknowledging it can undermine the negotiating team’s ability to compromise with the employer on issues. The public gaze may make either side feel pressured to act tough. For some activists, that pressure to not compromise is one of the benefits of open negotiating. Others worry it could pose a barrier to meaningful dialogue.

Wender-Shubow’s response is that building relationships with union members, and allowing for accountability and transparency is worth the risk and outweighs any possible negatives.

News: Some voices are calling on Democratic President Joe Biden to refuse to debate Donald Trump, his likely Republican challenger.

View: My view is that the only thing worse than giving Trump a debate platform would be seeming to be afraid to debate him.

David Frum’s “Why Biden Should Not Debate Trump” echoes Mark Jacob’s sentiment and Jennifer Shultze’s essay “A Biden-Trump 2024 presidential debate? Hell no,” and I get it. But there’s no way Biden won’t appear weak and cowardly if he declines an invitation to a now-customary presidential debate or two.

News: Fourteen out of the 17 alders whose wards now use the controversial ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology want to keep it, over the objection of Mayor Brandon Johnson.

View: I trust these alders and Police Supt. Larry Snelling, who also wants to keep the technology in place, over Johnson, who pledged during his campaign to eliminate ShotSpotter and plans to end the contract in November. Johnson maintains ShotSpotter is not effective at catching evildoers, has too many false positives and leads to overpolicing of Black and brown neighborhoods. But supporters say it has saved many lives by getting first responders to scenes of gun crimes faster than relying on 911.

Is it worth the $10 million annual price tag? The civil settlements the city pays out in wrongful death suits suggests it is. But a proposal to empower alders to decide whether they wanted the technology in their wards was deferred Wednesday.

From the Sun-Times:

Johnson said the order stripping him of the power to cancel the ShotSpotter contract has no “legal standing.”

“There’s no process by which you could govern through a la carte,” Johnson said at a news conference after Wednesday’s Council meeting, adding that there’s no way “to do that type of ward-by-ward contracting.”

The mayor said he extended the contract to give Council members “time to think through other technologies” but won’t change his mind about canceling it.

“People who voted for me knew what my position was,” he said. “This didn’t just pop up.”

Johnson seems to think that winning 52.2% of the vote last year implied a mandate for all his positions rather than an “on balance…” preference for him over Paul Vallas. He needs to get over himself and start collaborating, as he so often claims he does.

News: Ald. Nicholas Sposato, 38th, and the Tribune Editorial Board are wroth with Andrea Kersten, chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability

View: You just can’t win with some people. After a police shooting the public wants answers and wants them quickly. No mumbling into the hand about “ongoing investigations” of brief incidents that happened weeks ago.

But when Kersten spoke candidly to the media about the March 21 shootout that left civilian Dexter Reed dead and an officer wounded, Sposato, a former firefighter, sent a letter to the city’s Office of the Inspector General saying she had spoken “in an accusatory and inappropriate prejudicial tone” about the Reed case, saying “Her comments have led to a tainting of public opinion about the case, and of the brave members of the Chicago Police Department” and that the investigations “have yet to commence.”

What comments, exactly? From the Tribune news article:

His letter did not cite examples from her public remarks. The alderman acknowledged in a phone interview that he could not find such examples before then punting that responsibility to Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.

“We scoured all over the place and then we couldn’t find the stuff that we were making accusations about, so we didn’t want to just put a pile of (expletive) in front of the inspector general and have her investigate everything,” Sposato said. “So we tried to give her what we could. We’re going to continue to investigate and look for stuff …”

Sounds like Sposato has been stealing from the “let’s impeach Joe Biden for something, but we’re not sure what” playbook of Congressional Republicans.

Meanwhile, the Tribune editorial doesn’t bring the shit either:

Kersten has felt free to discuss the substance of a probe still in its early stages. That includes COPA’s suspicion that the officers lied when they said they stopped Reed for failing to wear a seat belt. In addition, she has spoken repeatedly about the 96 shots fired by the cops and emphasized state law requiring police responses, even when they’re shot at first (as they were in this case), to be proportional.

While Kersten has been careful throughout to emphasize the probe is ongoing, which is good, this media barnstorming risks giving the public the impression that COPA is leaning toward recommending discipline for some or all of the officers involved. Headlines that have followed her interviews have blared out the “96 shots in 41 seconds” and COPA’s implied view that the cops may be dissembling.

The Tribune should direct its indignation at the idea that it’s taken weeks for the police to give us a straight story and that the investigation “has yet to commence.” And it should not shy from noting that it’s obvious that Reed was pulled over for some other reason than a seatbelt violation. Further, I hope there is general agreement that the state law demands proportional responses, and that by validating the concerns that many Chicagoans have she has likely lowered the temperature on this situation.

Blaming Kersten for headlines and not providing any direct quotes was very Sposatian, to coin a word.

Intended or not, Kersten has given the impression that these officers did something — or many things — wrong. Members of the public viewing those videos are free, of course, to voice those opinions. But the person leading the first step of the official reckoning shouldn’t be doing so.

Please. She has merely stated the obvious in her many media appearances, which, to me, are a reassuring signal that COPA is going to be as candid and transparent as possible; that we’re not going to wait around for months to get a straight story.

Meanwhile, WTTW-Ch. 11’s Heather Cherone has the goods in “Top Cop Says CPD Tracks Accusations Against Officers — But Took No Action After 36 Complaints Filed Against Officers Involved in Dexter Reed Shooting.”

(Police Superintendent Larry) Snelling’s promise of accountability is contradicted by the fact that the five officers who stopped Reed had been the subject of at least 36 complaints in 2023 and 2024 that alleged they were improperly stopping Chicagoans driving through the city’s West Side, according to records provided to WTTW News by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Three of those complaints allege the same officers made similar traffic stops in the city’s Harrison (11th) Police District on Feb. 26, March 1 and March 6, less than a month before the traffic stop that led to Reed’s death. … The driver who was stopped on March 6 said he was stopped without justification and their car was searched without probable cause. Like Reed’s car, the car that was stopped on March 6 had tinted windows.

Officers told COPA investigators at the scene of the fatal shooting they stopped Reed because they believed he was not wearing his seat belt, a violation, according to reports signed by the officers involved and released by COPA because they are public records.

Now that’s something to worry about.

News: “Three Jewish lawmakers reject Mayor Johnson’s invite to discuss antisemitism”

View: And I reject the idea that adults who may disagree on a matter of great importance shouldn’t sit down and talk to one another.

In a letter sent Friday declining the invitation, 50th Ward Ald. Debra Silverstein; state Sen. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, and state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, pointed to Johnson’s tie-breaking vote in support of a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the war in Gaza as an example of Johnson’s “stunning failure in leadership.”

The letter also cited Johnson’s support for Chicago Public School students walking out in support of a cease-fire, among other reasons, as more evidence of their dissatisfaction with Johnson’s support of the Jewish community.

“True change can only start at the top. Before calling for a roundtable on antisemitism, a true leader should begin by demonstrating a modicum of empathy for the Jewish community — we have seen none of that,” the letter read.

Representatives for the Jewish United Fund and Anti-Defamation League Midwest confirmed they were invited to Monday’s roundtable and also declined to attend. (Sun-Times)

Giving someone the equivalent of the silent treatment is no way to reach an understanding or find productive ways forward. This is true in our private lives and our professional lives. I don’t know why the idea seems to have purchase now in our political lives.

Sure, there are utterly unreasonable people whose contemptible bigotry need not be dignified with dialogue. But Johnson isn’t a Nazi. He’s a political leader pulled various directions by constituents who are outraged over an issue that he probably never thought would be on his desk.

Land of Linkin’

• In Tuesday’s Picayune Plus I took a close look at one of the surveillance videos of the police stop of Dexter Reed that ended tragically, and argued that it matters that police seem to be lying about why they pulled him over.

• The fallouts and counterpoints to now former NPR business editor Uri Berliner’s essay “I’ve been at NPR for 25 years. Here’s how we lost America’s trust.” included a Tribune editorial — “Liberal bias at NPR, old-school journalism and the reluctance to admit a mistake,” — and a blistering rejoinder to that editorial. Democratic Congressional staffer Aaron Fritschner posted a contrary view on Twitter. More below in Squaring up the news.

• “Ben Stern, Holocaust survivor who fought planned neo-Nazi march in Skokie, dies at 102” is another excellent obituary for the Tribune by Robert Goldsborough. The story of Stern’s rapprochement with Ira Glasser, the national director of the ACLU from 1978 until 2001, is very moving.

• “As the Chicago Bears prepare to unveil their vision for a new downtown stadium, projects in other NFL cities could prove instructive” is a terrifically detailed, lengthy story by the Tribune’s Dan Wiederer, Colleen Kane and Bob McCoppin that puts the current wrangle into perspective.

• And speaking of in-depth reporting, I direct you again to “Illegal bribe or legitimate ‘gratuity’: How a $13,000 payment to an Indiana mayor could alter political corruption cases in Chicago” a Tribune story by Amy Lavalley, Jason Meisner and Megan Crepeau about the case just heard at the U.S. Supreme Court that could upend political corruption prosecutions.

• In “The Moral Case Against Equity Language,” George Packer argued last year against the dainty circumlocutions, “The battle against euphemism and cliché is long-standing and, mostly, a losing one. What’s new and perhaps more threatening about equity language is the special kind of pressure it brings to bear. The conformity it demands isn’t just bureaucratic; it’s moral. But assembling preapproved phrases from a handbook into sentences that sound like an algorithmic catechism has no moral value. Moral language comes from the struggle of an individual mind to absorb and convey the truth as faithfully as possible.

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:

■ They can’t fire him. He’s quitting: After NPR issued a “final warning” and five-day suspension without pay to senior editor Uri Berliner, who went public with his complaint that the network has “comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview,” he resigned.

■ His colleague, Steve Inskeep: “Berliner gave a perfect example of the kind of journalism he says he’s against.”

■ News credibility rating site NewsGuard has stripped The New York Times of its perfect rating.

■ Donald Trump’s niece Mary L. Trump—a psychologist—says his trial on charges of falsifying documents to prevent damaging disclosures in the waning days of the 2016 election puts him “in a unique context for which he is totally unprepared.”

■ O.J. ➪ Trump: CNN’s Oliver Darcy painstakingly maps the connections between O.J. Simpson’s saga and Donald J. Trump’s rise to political power.

■ Simpson last year offered Trump some advice Trump did not take.

■ Law professor Joyce Vance exposes Lara Trump as “a habitual election denier … now running the Republican Party.”

■ WBEZ: Cook County’s set aside $20 million for suburbs to help migrants, but only two towns have applied.

■ What happens to those empty bottles? Bankrupt dairy producer Oberweis has explained what went wrong but says it expects to continue operating as it seeks a buyer, hoping to preserve at least 1,000 of its 1,100 nonunion jobs.

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Photo: Mary Schmich

Mary Schmich: Clouds are everything

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries or passing thoughts on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is a recent offering:

My brother Bill was a painter and no matter what he painted he always added clouds. A couple of months before he died we took a car ride into the Colorado mountains then sat on a rock and looked out at the sky. I said something trite like, "The clouds are nice." He was quiet for a moment, then he said, "The clouds are everything."

I thought of that line and him today when I walked along the lakefront.

The clouds are everything.

Minced Words

Jon Hansen, Cate Plys, Austin Berg and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We discussed the protests that blocked access to O’Hare on Monday, the continuing fallout from the police killing of Dexter Reed and other issues in the news. Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Quotables

Our union was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. The Battle of Gettysburg. What an unbelievable — I mean it was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways. It represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg. Wow! I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And the statement of Robert E. Lee — who’s no longer in favor, did you ever notice that? No longer in favor — “Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.” They were fighting uphill. He said, “Wow! That was a big mistake.”’ He lost his great  general. And they were fighting. “Never fight uphill, me boys,” but it was too late. — Donald Trump

“I'd be more willing to accept religion, even if I didn't believe it, if I thought it made people nicer to each other. But I don't think it does. — Andy Rooney

In a study of nearly 35,000 people aged 65 years or older in the Journal of the American Medical Association, those who walked at about 2.6 feet per second over a short distance—which would amount to a mile in about 33 minutes—were likely to hit their average life expectancy. With every speed increase of around 4 inches per second, the chance of dying in the next decade fell by about 12 percent. (Whenever I think about this study, I start walking faster.) … James Hamblin

Re: Tweets

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:

The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:

• Podcasts are like babies, they're too easy to create and not everyone should have one. — @marknorm

• If a stranger starts talking to me in an elevator I say "I don't want to talk in case we get stuck and I have to eat you." That usually shuts them up. — @Tbone7219

• Why’s it always, “New York City smells like pee” and never, “My pee smells like the greatest city in the world”? — @AsiaDNYC

• We didn't forget. We all still talk about that time you tripped in front of the whole class. There's a group text about it. — @bestestname

• Good morning to everyone except the parent in my 6-year-old’s class who paid out $10 as the tooth fairy. — @LifePitts

• Male cult leader: I have received a new revelation from the Lord. Me: Let me guess, he wants you to have multip— Cult leader: I am to have multiple wives. — @BrandyLJensen

• People who sound like fonts: Ariana Grande. Roman Roy. Jim Courier. Lydia West. Bon Iver. Suella Braverman. Jesse Ventura. — @michaelhogan

• That photo you’ve seen of me pushing children down to get in line first at the Pizza Hut buffet is most likely AI generated. — @MoMohler

• “Wow mom! You look so pretty today!” “We don’t have to do this. What do you want?” — @StruggleDisplay

• If the Superman cartoon had been made today, the first guy who thought the thing up in the sky was a bird would have doubled down on his mistake. “Oh sure, the mainstream media will tell you that Superman isn’t a bird, but I’ve done my own research.” — @Writepop

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media. And I will continue to call the platform Twitter if only to spite Elon Musk:

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Good Sports

Sky Fever

The Chicago Sky of the WNBA drafted a pair of standout collegiate stars this week — Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese — and ticket sales have been impressive. But Sun-Times beat writer Annie Costabile has some cautionary words for fans:

There are currently seven frontcourt players under contract (with the Sky).

Two of them, Brianna Turner and Michaela Onyenwere, were part of the trade haul for (former team standout Kahleah) Copper. Drafting Cardoso and Reese is clearly a move for the future, but it brings into question what the Sky’s plan is now.

With the game moving more towards a positionless style of play, it’s a curious decision by (Sky general manager Jeff) Pagliocca to draft two bigs who together took just 34 three-point attempts in their career. Reese accounted for the bulk of those attempts, with 32 in her four-year career.

Will the White Sox win the race to the slop?

In big-league baseball’s modern era (since 1900) the benchmark for worst team performance in a single season has long been the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, who finished 36-117 — a winning percentage of .235.

After splitting a doubleheader with the Kansas City Royals Wednesday, the execrable White Sox had a winning percentage of .166 (3-15).

The announced attendance was 10,412. But to judge from these screen captures from a video taken at Guaranteed Rate Field during the second game, I will take the under:

It’s admittedly too early to get caught up in the worst-season-ever hype. In 2022 the Cincinnati Reds were 3-15 after 18 games but finished the season at 62-100 (.382). And after 18 games in the 2023, the Oakland A’s also stood at 3-15, but finished at 50-112 (.309).

The magic number for the Sox this year is 39 — the victory total that will assure they will not go down in history.

Tune of the Week

Last week’s tune, a reader nomination, was by Jenny Lewis. She happens to be one of the four founding members of the indie rock band Rilo Kiley (named for an Australian-rule football player), which put me in mind of a song of theirs I really like, “A Better Son/Daughter” off their 2002 album “The Execution of All Things.”

It begins with hauntingly thin, quiet vocals that seem delivered through a telephone connection, reflecting the singer’s depression. Then at 1:40 it bursts into a full sound that mimics a manic phase.

Sometimes when you're on
You're really fucking on
And your friends, they sing along 
And they love you
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fucking cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence
But you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
You'll be better and you'll be smarter and more grown up
And a better daughter or son
And a real good friend

It’s terrific poetry masterfully delivered. You might have heard it in the trailer for “Orange is the New Black” or at the end of Hannah Gadsby's Netflix special, “Nanette.”

In 2015, DePaul University writing professor Joe Hemmerling wrote this about the song at Tiny Mix Tapes:

(In my mid-20s), my life felt like a noose tightening around my neck: there was no one in my life who I did not feel like I was letting down, and the five-to-six hours of sleep I was getting each night only served to magnifying every difficulty I encountered into an insurmountable obstacle.

Through all of this, Rilo Kiley’s “A Better Son/Daughter” emerged as a personal ward against constantly encroaching despair. … When Jenny Lewis said, in her gentle sing-song voice, “Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can’t move,” it was a position I recognized all too well.

I would play it when I was alone in my car, the volume cranked up to the max while I shouted along with the words (that first line when all the instruments kick in — “And sometimes when you’re on, you’re really fucking on” — contains one of the best-placed and most cathartic “fucks” in the entire history of songwriting in the English language). The shift from first person in the song’s opening lines to second person created a sense of universality, like Lewis was singing not just about herself, but about me and by extension everyone like us.

---

I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’ve asked readers to nominate songs from after the year 2000 and to send along YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you. Leave nominations in comments or use this link to email me at ericzorn@gmail.com.

Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!

Mistakes were made

When I become aware of errors in the Picayune Sentinel, I quickly correct them in the online version, but since many of you read just the email version, which I can’t correct after the fact, I will use this space periodically to alert you to meaningful mistakes I’ve made. (Not typos, in other words.)

Last week when ticking off the list of gotta-watch athletes who draw fans I mentioned Gabby Giffords who is, as several of you pointed out, the former member of the U.S. House from Arizona who barely survived an assassination attempt in 2011. I meant to type Gabby Douglas, the 2012 Olympic all-around gymnastics champion, but I should have typed Simone Biles, who is a more current example of excellence in gymnastics.

I had the wrong link to NPR’s David Folkenflik’s rejoinder to Uri Berliner the now former senior editor at NPR, whose essay “I’ve been at NPR for 25 years. Here’s how we lost America’s trust.” touched off a national conversation about the public radio network. See Land of Linkin’ and Squaring up the news, above.

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