Trump has the absolute right to remain silent
And we have the right to consider that a sign of guilt
5-23-2024 (issue No. 142)
This week:
The “hush money” case jurors aren’t to draw any inferences from Trump’s refusal to testify — But the rest of us are free to.
News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked on the crash in Glenview, the term “justice-impacted individual,” Freedom Center’s past and future, ignorant voters and more.
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
Mary Schmich — A curtain call at the Tribune with an update on an earlier story
Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Re:Tweets — The winning visual tweet and this week’s contest finalists
Good Sports — The Indiana Pacers coach erred at the end of game one against the Boston Celtics, it’s just math! And the White Sox draw even with the 1916 Philadelphia A’s in the worst-team-ever standings
Tune of the Week — “Chicago” by Graham Nash, nominated by reader Mark Harris
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 jurors aren’t to draw any inferences from Trump’s refusal to testify. But the rest of us are free to.
Donald Trump told reporters on the eve of his ongoing trial that he would take the witness stand, saying, “All I can do is tell the truth.”
But of course that, like so much of what Trump says on any given day, was a lie. After bitterly complaining about the gag order imposed on him by the trial judge, he has strapped on the muzzle and will not testify in his ongoing criminal trial in New York City, which will wrap up with closing arguments next week.
The judge will tell jurors not to hold his failure to take the witness stand against him. Under our system of justice, the state must prove its case, while the defense is under no obligation to prove anything at all. The right against compulsory self-incrimination — the right to remain silent — is strong throughout the world. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that, when speaking in the jury’s presence, prosecutors can’t refer even indirectly to a defendant’s refusal to testify.
There are good reasons why even innocent defendants would not choose to take the stand. They might not present themselves well; they might be easily confused, and their hesitations and memory lapses would look bad to a jury; they might have legally irrelevant skeletons in their closets — prior convictions, gang affiliations and so on — that would come out in cross-examination and prejudice the jury; they might slip up under pressure and say something incriminating or false that would leave them exposed to a perjury charge.
Still, common sense and life experience tells us that “no comment” is often the refuge of scoundrels. If, for instance, your life partner were to refuse to explain a receipt from a local motel that turned up in the laundry hamper, he or she would be unlikely to consider your stubborn silence to be a neutral response.
And even though the rules of a criminal trial differ, quite appropriately, from the rules that govern domestic wrangles, citizens naturally bring such experience into the jury box.
When I wrote a column about this pegged to O.J. Simpson’s decision not to testify in his criminal trial, Timothy O’Neill, a professor at John Marshall Law School who had published articles on the very topic, told me, “Social scientists have found that jurors are often disappointed and even confused when the defendant doesn’t take the stand. They are looking for the most plausible explanation of the circumstances, and they want to say to the defendant, ‘Come on! What’s your story?’”
Back then, surveys conducted by the National Jury Project, a trial-consulting firm, showed that 50 percent to 65 percent of respondents believe that defendants should be required to testify, according to the company.
That’s going too far, but so is asking citizen jurors to apply their common sense and judgment related to the evidence, but then to set it aside when a defendant declines to answer questions under oath.
Last week’s winning tweet
“Oh. Wow. Oh. Jeez. We didn’t think everyone was gonna bring a bag!” -airlines — @DanWilbur
Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.
Feeling Unconventional
Journalists and delegates tend to enjoy political conventions. They get to hang with their far-flung pals and spot celebrities. The news value of what goes on inside the arena at these events is minimal — there hasn’t been suspense at a convention in most people’s lifetimes — and the whole thing feels obsolete. They are big pep rallies for the parties, and while I’m sure I’ll watch a few speech highlights and the acceptance addresses by the presidential nominees on TV, I’ll spend the mid-August week of the Democratic National Convention at home worrying.
Worrying that protesters will resort to extreme and even violent tactics to draw attention to their causes. Worrying that tumult in the streets will give Chicago and the Democrats a black eye rather than a lift in the polls. Worrying that the attention=seekers will dull the obvious differences between Democratic incumbent Joe Biden and Republican challenger Donald Trump — abortion rights protesters, what in the world are you thinking harping on the Democrats instead of championing Biden?
News & Views
News: Taeyoung Kim, 21, of Northbrook was allegedly driving 122 mph on Lake Avenue in Glenview with his lights off on the night of May 12 when his car struck another vehicle, resulting in the death of 17-year-old Marko Niketic.
View: Kim, who survived with fairly minor injuries — and isn’t it always the way? — has been charged with a variety of criminal offenses including reckless homicide, which, given the aggravating factors, could result in a prison term of up to 14 years under Illinois law.
Seems like first-degree murder to me, though. Driving at that speed with the lights off is more dangerous than firing a gun into a crowd.
Illinois law defines first-degree murder this way:
A person who kills an individual without lawful justification commits first degree murder if, in performing the acts which cause the death:
(1) he or she either intends to kill or do great bodily harm to that individual or another, or knows that such acts will cause death to that individual or another; or
(2) he or she knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual or another.
What Kim allegedly did was not simply reckless, but it also showed depraved indifference to the lives of others, and he had to know that. The outcome was sickening and unconscionable.
Related thought: I frequently see drivers on the Edens and Dan Ryan expressways exceeding 90 mph as they weave in and out of traffic, and I side with WGN-AM 720 program host John Williams who is advocating for the installation of speed cameras to detect and issue steep tickets to brazen speeders.
The threshold should be high — tickets issued only to those going more than 85 mph — and to protect privacy, the data obtained from the cameras should be erased daily except for the snippets that catch speeders.
What do you think?
News: Illinois House Bill 4409 that replaces the word “offender” with “justice-impacted individual” in the Adult Redeploy Illinois program has passed the General Assembly and is headed for Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk.
View: I’m not a fan of this particular linguistic softening, and I fear that it suggests an unbecoming tolerance for criminal behavior. Someone who has broken the law has impacted others, and the proposed new terminology suggests instead that the law has impacted the person who broke that law, which is Orwellian.
The bill, passed the House 68-40 in mid-April and the Senate 34-20 on Tuesday.
It makes other changes to Adult Redeploy Illinois, a program aimed at developing effective, less expensive community-based alternatives to incarceration and improving access to interventions that reduce crime.”
In certain circles, such words as “offender,” “inmate,” “felon,” “criminal,” “convict” and “prisoner” are out, and “individual with justice system involvement,” “individual affected by the justice system” and “individual impacted by the justice system” are in.
Vera, a national organization whose mission is to “end the over-criminalization and mass incarceration of people of color, immigrants, and people experiencing poverty.” writes:
Calling a person who was convicted of a crime a “criminal,” “felon,” or “offender” defines them only by a past act and does not account for their full humanity or leave space for growth. These words also promote dangerous stereotypes and stoke fear, which stigmatizes people who have been convicted of crimes and makes it harder for them to thrive.
“Justice of a piece with the “people first” language movement in which a homeless person is “a person experiencing homelessness” or “a person who is unhoused.” But it seems to me that this particular ultra-enlightened terminology risks trivializing the experiences of individuals who are negatively impacted by justice-impacted individuals — aka crime victims.
When those who have been convicted of breaking the law have served their time, I’m all for mentioning their past criminal histories only when relevant, and then to be sure to use the prefix “ex” as applicable.
News: “A top Washington Post editor instructed editors Tuesday night not to promote a story about a controversy involving the paper’s new CEO Will Lewis.”
View: This is a disgrace to journalism, similar to the disgrace I called out when the Tribune editors declined in February to cover a one-day strike by newsroom employees.
NPR summarized the allegations against Lewis in March. According to the story, when Lewis was general manager of conservative propagandist Rupert Murdoch's News International, he was allegedly “a leader of a frenzied conspiracy to kneecap public officials hostile to a multibillion-dollar business deal and to delete millions of potentially damning emails” related to phone and email hacking by Murdoch’s publications.
Now I have to credit the Tribune for publishing a news story about a wage-discrimination lawsuit filed by seven members of the newsroom union.
The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, alleges female and African American journalists receive, on average, several thousands of dollars less per year than their white male colleagues, a pay disparity that would be in violation of federal and state law. … The lawsuit alleges the Chicago Tribune relied on diversity recruitment programs to bring on women and minority journalists for yearlong residencies at lower salaries, keeping them at that reduced pay scale if they were hired full time. It also alleges the Tribune “intentionally” hires women and minority employees from suburban newspapers to pay them at a lower rate.
I naturally side with my former colleagues and in some cases friends, but I confess to knowing little about how pay-inequity cases are argued. I’ll be very interested to learn how the company responds in pretrial depositions and will follow this suit here as best I can.
News: The Tribune’s Freedom Center printing plant stopped printing the newspaper after Sunday’s edition. Operations have moved to Schaumburg.
View: Tribune business reporter Robert Channick wrote a thorough story on the transition that included profiles of some of the Freedom Center employees impacted by the change.
The story said the plan was “scheduled to print 160,000 copies of the Sunday Chicago Tribune.” A quick check online found that Sunday circulation was 1.13 million in the early ‘90s.
A major casino project is set to open on the site in 2026, but I’m increasingly doubtful that it will be the boon some civic leaders are hoping for. Earlier this month, Axios Chicago reported:
Bally's Chicago reported a month-to-month revenue decline (at its temporary casino in the old Medinah Temple on the Near North Side) for the first time in April, bringing in $10.3 million, down from about $11.1 million in March. … In the first three months it was open, the casino collected about $3 million in local tax revenue, about $10 million less than the city projected.
Casino gambling feels old-school to me now, given how easy it is to place wagers on your phone. I have no moral objection to gambling, but I remain highly skeptical that Bally’s and the city will look back on this upcoming project with satisfaction.
News: “Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden.”
View: Disinformation is the enemy of democracy, but so is ignorance. The new Harris poll shows:
55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.
49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.
49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.
58% (said) the economy is worsening due to mismanagement from the presidential administration.
72% indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-Covid peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% a year.
I understand the last response — prices are still going up even though the inflation rate is way down from a spike in the summer of 2022, and the overall rise in prices over the last three-plus years has been dismaying.
Add to this Trump’s braying lies about how good the economy was under him, and the gullible electorate is likely to vote for him on that basis alone.
Land of Linkin’
Cate Plys has posted her disagreement with my view that the Chicago City Council — and all government bodies — should knock it off with the honorary resolutions and other legislative fluff. For her boldness, she deserves to have a street named for her.
The “Songs Around the World” version of “Ripple,” last week’s tune, is really cool. (Thanks to reader James Paskiewicz, who also pointed me to the Jane’s Addiction cover.)
Contributing Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens has been on fire lately. I urge you to read “As we send our babies to college, do we do enough to celebrate the village that raised them?” : “It has all felt like minutes. She was born five minutes ago. She started walking five minutes ago. She stopped napping five minutes ago. She started driving five minutes ago. She turned me into a whole new person with a whole new, very full, very tender, very breakable heart a few minutes ago. … Mothering is the single greatest, scariest, truest thing I’ve ever done and will ever do. Sending my first-born child to college means a chapter of that mothering is closing, and a new one is about to open. And it’s got me feeling contemplative and raw and, above all else, grateful beyond belief — for the people who showed us the way and cheered us on and shaped us and loved us and picked us up and let us into their worlds and joined us in ours.”
Chicagoans, your yard waste bag is just garbage unless you call 311 (Picayune Plus)
Mark Jacob: “With Team Trump sharing a video about how we'll have a ‘Unified Reich’ if Trump wins, I thought I'd re-up my Twitter thread from 2022 comparing how MAGA operates with how the Nazis operated, based on William Shirer's ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.’”
Kevin Drum: “The Washington Post is very, very wrong about the economy.”
Who had the better take on the refusal of pro-Palestinian student protesters to speak to reporters or passers by? Was it WTTW-Ch. 11 reporter Heather Cherone or Crain’s Chicago Business columnist Greg Hinz? Here are the results of the click poll. (Picayune Plus)
WGN-AM 720 host John Williams grilled Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on his program Tuesday about a proposed policy change in which her office will not prosecute in a case where a motorist is pulled over for administrative traffic stops, such as expired registrations or burned out taillights.
“The French Post Office has released a scratch-and-sniff postage stamp to celebrate the baguette. … The stamp has a ‘bakery scent’. The ink used on the stamps contains microcapsules which provide the fragrance.” (The Guardian)
That’s Ben Zorn fiddling “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom,” a tune I have yet to master.
“Someone in Chicago is lunch napping with friends” and someone else — me — is confused. (Picayune Plus)
“Good Golly, Miss Marjorie” is Marc Mayer’s song parody riffing on Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s description of Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a “bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body” in response to Taylor insulting her during a House hearing.
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:
■ Wired: How to strip your personal info from Google search results.
■ NOTUS’ interviews with more than 20 current and former staffers and examination of 10 years of nonprofit filings suggest that the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors “partied, spent big and lobbied hard. Then it all came crashing down.”
■ Editor & Publisher explains what NOTUS is.
■ “Trump was stupid and ignorant long before he got old” — Gov. Pritzker at the United Center Wednesday, welcoming reporters to a “media walkthrough” for this summer’s Democratic National Convention.
■ “A unified Reich”: Yeah, Donald Trump’s social media account went there with video that boastfully mirrored Nazi terminology.
■ After the helicopter crash deaths of Iran’s president and its foreign minister, Julia Gray—whose newsletter is called “Actually, I’m a very nice person”—celebrated: “One less piece-of-shit human in the world.”
■ Chicago magazine set up a suburban smackdown with its comparison of Evanston vs. Oak Park.
■ Slate analyzes just what went wrong with the spectacular implosion of the merged Foxtrot and Dom’s grocery chains.
■ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg has bad news for the Museum of Science and Industry’s new namesake: “Sorry, Ken.”
■ Yale fellow John Stoehr rips into The New York Times for asking an irresponsible question in one of its presidential election polls: “There’s a reason why some say the Times has contempt for ordinary people. It’s because the Times has contempt for ordinary people.”
■ Popular Information puts the lie to the myth of “woke” indoctrination at American universities.
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
Mary Schmich: Back in the Tribune again with an update on one of her classic stories
By Mary Schmich, posted to Facebook, reprinted with permission:
I wrote a freelance story for Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. It felt important to me to tell this story and I was glad the Tribune said OK. Tavon Tanner and his mother, Mellanie Washington, are remarkable people. So is Tavon's twin sister, Taniyah. So are the two Chicago police detectives who worked Tavon's case. Jason Wambsgans took his usual beautiful photos.
I'm pasting the top of the story here, along with the photo of the front page . Here is the link to the whole story.
-------------------------------------------------------------
On Thursday afternoon, with his mother eager to get him into the car, Tavon Tanner took his time putting on the triumphal costume of his high school graduation.
A brand new navy blue suit, tailored just for him. A bow tie, which he had a little trouble attaching to his collar. As he stood in the living room and zipped up his green graduation gown, he laughed and mumbled, “I look like a priest.”
His twin sister shook her head.
“You look sharp,” she said.
If you’d seen Tavon in that moment, you’d never guess, unless you knew, what was hidden by those fancy clothes. A scar that runs the full length of his abdomen. A leg that still hurts when the weather gets too hot or cold. And years of wondering whether he would make it to graduation day.
“Let’s go,” his mother urged.
They had to get downtown to the cathedral. They couldn’t be late, not for this ceremony that felt like a miracle.
Graduation day came so fast. That’s what Tavon’s mother, Mellanie Washington, keeps thinking, though back in the summer of 2016 it was hard to believe that it would ever come.
Back then, on a warm August night, Tavon had been sitting on the front porch of their home on Chicago’s West Side, gazing at the moon, when from out of the darkness came the rat-a-tat-tat of bullets.
One of the bullets hit Tavon. It pierced his lower spine, then traveled up into his organs, doing damage that would never be entirely undone. He was 10 years old.
As he lay bleeding on the floor, his sister, Taniyah, stood next to him and cried, “Twin, don’t leave me! Twin, don’t leave me!”
His mother prayed out loud into the phone as she dialed 911.
Two months after Tavon was shot, I asked Mellanie Washington if the Chicago Tribune could do a story on what that bullet had done to her son and the people who loved him. She said yes. She wanted the world to know how violence ripples through a family.
The story appeared in December 2016, with remarkable photos by Tribune photographer Jason Wambsgans. But Jason and I knew that to make any real sense of what happened to Tavon, it was important to know what happened long afterward.
Mellanie and Tavon wanted the world to know too.
So for several years, Jason and I met with Tavon and his family annually near the anniversary of the shooting.
Tavon grew taller. He grew a mustache. He was always friendly with us, but the shooting had turned him into a quiet, watchful boy with everyone, and that didn’t change.
We last went to visit him in the pandemic year of 2020. He was about to enter St. Patrick H.S. on the Northwest Side, near the house he and his family had moved into a few months after he was shot.
He was nervous about the school. It was Catholic, strict. A lot of white kids. He wasn’t used to that. It was an experiment that might not work.
A few days ago, we went back to see him and to find out. (continue reading)
Minced Words
Brandon Pope drives how fast? He reveals his lead-footed tendencies in this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast, in which the word brouhaha was bandied about. I prefer hullabaloo, kerfuffle or foofaraw myself. Dictionary.com says the word is —
—from French, originally, brou, ha, ha! exclamation used by characters representing the devil in16th-century drama; (or) perhaps from Hebrew, distortion of the recited phrase bārūkh habbā (beshēm ădōnai) “blessed is he who comes (in the name of the Lord)l” (Psalms 118:26)
Anyway. The panel, which also includes Cate Plys, Austin Berg, host John Williams and me, touched on many brouhahas (broushaha?) both local and national.
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
A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Trump assured the public in 2017 that the U.S. economy with his tax cuts would grow at “3%,” but he added, “I think it could go to 4, 5, and maybe even 6%, ultimately.” If the 2020 pandemic is excluded, growth after inflation averaged 2.67% under Trump, according to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Include the pandemic-induced recession and that average drops to an anemic 1.45%. By contrast, growth during the second term of then-President Barack Obama averaged 2.33%. So far under Biden, annual growth is averaging 3.4% —Josh Boak, Associated Press
We’re looking at that and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly. And I think it’s something that I think you’ll find interesting. It’s another issue that’s very interesting. You will find it, I think, very smart. I think it’s a smart decision. But we’ll be releasing it very soon. — Donald Trump responding on KDKA-TV Pittsburgh to the question, “Do you support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception?
Several reliable, well-informed sources confirm the idea that Hitler's anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes. A sophisticated politician credited Hitler with peculiar political cleverness for laying emphasis and overemphasis on antisemitism. — The New York Times in 1922
(Donald Trump) mocked my husband’s military service. And I’ll say this, Donald: If you have something to say, don’t say it behind my back. Get on a debate state and say it to my face. If you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don’t deserve a driver’s license, let alone being president of the United States — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in February, three months before she endorsed Trump for president
I am genuinely glad to see that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is now doing the work that he was always meant to do: posting crackpot videos to the internet for an audience of angry loons. … (Even though) the internet is already oversaturated with perfervid dog-whistling about shadowy globalist cabals. — Justin Peters, Slate
(Royce White, the U.S. Senate hopeful in Minnesota who was just endorsed by the state Republican party)
You’re damn right I want to hear your cicada story and see your cicada photos!
Actually, no, I’m already bored to tears by conventional and social media reports of “cicadageddon,” and the bugssssssssssssss haven’t even reached my Northwest Side neighborhood yet.
I have repurposed an old banjo joke and now contend that the definition of a gentleman is a man who has a cicada story but does not tell it.
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:
One day you’re going to see a post that says “you know you’re old if you know what this is” and it’s going to be a wordle score — @UncleDuke1969
There are so many tornados in Ohio, the state bird is lawn furniture. — @BobGolen
Me: I’d like to read a comedy by Shakespeare. Librarian: Which one? Me: William — @AbbyHiggs
Welcome to adulthood: nobody needs that many coffee cups, just stop it. — @NotTodayEric
Naked = No clothes Nekkid = No clothes and you’re up to something. — @futwolfhardware
[abruptly stops playing my air banjo] Oh the intervention is for ME? — @sofarrsogud
It sucks that crazy people ruined wearing tinfoil hats for those of us that just did it for fashion purposes. — @TheAndrewNadeau
One day you’re going to see a post that says “you know you’re old if you know what this is” and it’s going to be a Wordle score — @UncleDuke1969
Me, as a cicada: Guys we all have to stop talking at the same time. — @RunwayDan
Not to brag, but I've been told I'm a fine one to talk. — @ddsmidt
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
Pacers fouled up by failing to ‘foul-up 3’
With 8.5 seconds to go in Tuesday night’s first game of the NBA Eastern Conference finals, the Boston Celtics were trailing by three points and had the ball out under their own basket with 8.5 seconds left.
The situation called for a “foul-up 3,” the term for deliberately fouling a player on the team that needs a three-point shot to tie the game with just a few seconds to go. This puts a member of the trailing team on the free-throw line for just two shots, not enough to tie the game.
Now, yes, that player could make the first shot, miss the second, have his team grab the rebound and pass the ball out for a game-winning trey, but that’s far less likely than the team on offense simply hitting a three-point shot.
Only about 3 in 4 times will the first free throw be good. Fewer than 1 in 6 missed free throws are rebounded by the shooting team, and a bit more than 1 in 3 three-point shots go in. Combining those averages, out of 100 times, this situation presents itself, there’s roughly a 1-in-4 chance of the team that was trailing by 3 taking the lead in the game, and a little less than a 1-in-10 chance of the offense tying the game. Fail to foul-up 3 and the odds are still with the defense, but in about 1-in 3-case,s the offense will tie the game.
The Pacers chose not to foul the Celtics. Jaylen Brown of the Celtics hit a three from the corner to tie the game with 5.8 seconds to go, the Pacers couldn’t get off a good shot on the other end and the Celtics went on to win in overtime.
If I were a Pacers fan, which I am not, I would be livid.
The No-No Sox
As long as the race remains close, I will offer you comparison standings of the 2024 White Sox with the 2003 Detroit Tigers and the 1962 New York Mets, teams that have defined futility for more than 80 years, and the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, the worst team in baseball’s modern era (20th century on).
After 50 games:
YEAR TEAM RECORD GB WINNING PERCENTAGE
1916 A’s 15-35 -- .300 (.235 full season)
2024 White Sox 15-35 — .300 (season so far)
1962 Mets 13-37 2 .260 (.250 full season)
2003 Tigers 13-37 2 .260 (.265 full season)
If and when the Sox have at least a three-game lead over this ignominious field, I’ll discontinue this weekly feature.
Tune of the Week
I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers or email to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you. The following nomination is from Mark Harris, and it’s timely, though far, far outside the post-2000 request). He wrote:
In light of recent events, I would nominate “Chicago” by Graham Nash as the Song of the Week and maybe the song of the summer. Get ready, Mayor Johnson. The convention will be interesting.
Zorn note
Wikipedia says:
"Chicago" (often listed as "Chicago / We Can Change the World") is the debut solo single by English singer-songwriter Graham Nash, released in 1971 from his debut solo album Songs for Beginners. …
The title and lyrics of the song refer to the anti-Vietnam War protests that took place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the subsequent trial of the Chicago Eight, where protest leaders were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot. The first line of the song, "So your brother's bound and gagged, and they've chained him to a chair," refers to Black Panther leader Bobby Seale,[ the sole African-American defendant, who was gagged and chained to a chair in the courtroom following repeated outbursts in protest of rulings by Judge Julius Hoffman.
The line "Won't you please come to Chicago just to sing?" refers to Nash pleading with bandmates Stephen Stills and Neil Young to come to Chicago to play a benefit concert for the Chicago 8 defense fund.
Though your brother's bound and gagged And they've chained him to a chair Won't you please come to Chicago Just to sing In a land that's known as freedom How can such a thing be fair Won't you please come to Chicago For the help we can bring We can change the world Rearrange the world.
Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!
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If Craven Spinelessness were an Olympic event, former governor Haley would win the gold medal.
Regarding the Bally’s casino. I’m not a prude, but whenever I read about a new casino or pot dispensary I think we are turning into Pottersville from It’s a Wonderful Lufe.