Zorn: Conventional wisdom

Thoughts on the upcoming gathering in our fair city

8-15-2024 (issue No. 154)

This week:

• Last week’s winning quip

• Why I won’t be at the United Center next week for the Democratic National Convention

• Why I’m concerned about plans to control street protests

• Why political conventions are like cigarettes

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked, on taxing tips and reports that Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to fire his schools CEO for being unwilling to plunge the district much deeper into debt

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

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

• A chart suggesting that Republicans are actually the party of death

• Mary Schmich — Thoughts after donating to a political campaign for the first time

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

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• They knew — a bonus collection of quotables from prominent Republicans

• Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists

• Good Sports — A controversy over Olympic gymnastics and another update on the spectacularly dismal Chicago White Sox, who will have to play better than they have been to avoid being the worst team in baseball’s modern era

• Tune of the Week — “Automatic Sun” by The Warning isn’t my kind of music, but a reader nominated it, so give a listen!

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.

Last week’s winning quip

I asked my wife what women really want and she said “attentive lovers.” Or maybe it was "a tent of lovers." I wasn't really listening. — @KenJennings

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

Conventional wisdom

Some thoughts on the upcoming gathering of Democrats at Chicago’s United Center.

Why I won’t be at the United Center next week

I was in Boston’s Fleet Center in July 2004 for the Tribune watching Illinois’ junior U.S. senator, Barack Obama, give the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. You may remember this choice passage:

There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

From my seat in a press area high up and perpendicular to the line of the stage, I felt the speech was falling a little flat. I saw some delegates not paying attention as they wandered the hall. The cheers and applause seemed a bit forced and muffled. I thought, well, Obama kinda whiffed on his opportunity to make a splash.

But when I returned to the Tribune area in the massive media center outside the main arena, I found that my colleagues who hadn’t been in the room but instead had watched the speech on TV were buzzing about what a game-changer it was — how cable pundits were declaring that Obama had clearly just launched himself into the political stratosphere.

Conventions are TV shows — infomercials, really — and since they’re designed to reach viewers and not delegates, the best place to watch them and evaluate them for their potential effectiveness is on your couch, not in the hall.

Yes, there can be interesting feature stories and intriguing moments off-camera, but for the most part, what’s happening behind the scenes is feckless oration and jolly reunions.

The revolution, if any, will most certainly be televised

In a 24-page ruling Monday, U.S District Judge Andrea Wood held that the proposed new protest/parade route next week for members of the Coalition to March on the DNC “allows them to speak near their intended audience” at the United Center and is therefore constitutional.

Here is that route:

It’s about 1.4 miles and uses some side streets. The coalition is still appealing for permission to take a route of about 2 miles along West Washington Boulevard and other wider streets that gets as close as two and half blocks from United Center and passes right by the northern boundary of the security perimeter.

Officials want to keep protesters away from the security fencing itself, which makes sense, but representatives of the coalition say keeping protesters at even this remove infringes on their free speech rights.

But are those in the hall really their “intended audience”? Delegates and dignitaries hustle in and out and will hear only snippets of the hey-hey, ho-ho before entering the hall. The “intended audience” is, in fact, news consumers and interested citizens coast to coast who will see their signs and hear their slogans and maybe a few sentences from a few speeches during newscasts and special reports, and be inspired to give renewed attention to a particular cause.

Getting attention is the purpose, and the fear is that some of the protesters will think (recognize?) that creating mayhem is a better way to generate news coverage than walking peacefully. Another fear is that if the crowd is as large as organizers are hoping for — in court filings they projected up to 25,000 marchers — the density of people milling around in such a small area will naturally generate chaos.

It seems possible that the curtailed narrower route will create more problems than it was designed to solve.

The whole world won’t be watching, as protesters in Chicago chanted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It’s the final weeks of summer. Conventions just aren’t that interesting. But much of the world will be scrolling and streaming. News cameras and cellphone cameras will catch every altercation and disruption and scores of platforms will amplify them. Viewers will judge police, protesters and the protesters’ cause accordingly.

No predictions here, but I’m hoping for the best.

National conventions are the cigarettes of politics

Like cigarettes, major-party political conventions are a hard habit to break.

And like cigarettes, they used to seem like a good idea. Glamorous. Cool. Exciting.

Then times changed, and general agreement formed that they weren't really a very good idea.

But a lot of people were hooked. Many cut way back on their consumption, but the die-hards — literally, in the case of cigarettes — couldn't and wouldn't let go.

Now those who partake do so in segregation from polite society — smokers indulge outdoors; delegates and journalists with the political convention monkey on their backs feed their habits within Eastern bloc-style security perimeters.

And everyone acknowledges that getting rid of conventions, like outlawing cigarettes, would eliminate a significant economic engine and put people out of work.

So, like cigarettes, these massive political conventions invite a thought experiment:

Could they be introduced today if they didn't exist? Does anything more than tradition, money and addiction-fed inertia sustain them?

Join me in a tribute to the late Bob Newhart as I imagine overhearing a party leader taking on the phone:

Hi, TV networks! Yes, we were thinking of having a couple of huge rallies for our presidential candidates and party insiders to whip up enthusiasm among the faithful, trash the opposition and raise lots of money. And we were wondering if we could please have an hour of TV time from you and nearly wall-to-wall coverage on the cable news outlets?

No, not for one day, for four days. ... It is a lot, but it's only every four years, and we won't charge you any rights fees at all. ... All you have to do is —

Hello? Hello?

Hey there, print media, old pals. Listen, we major parties were planning two big national gatherings and — Oh, you heard about it from the TV folks? Good, well, can we count on you to send thousands of reporters, photographers and editors and set up mini-newsrooms in order to cover it. ...?

Oh, we see. Actually, no, we'll be making all the important party decisions well beforehand, but tell you what, we'll ask the local hotels not to gouge you too badly. And though you can't bring your own desks, tables, lamps or food into your work area, we will allow you to rent them at obscene rates, and. …

Actually, we'll be holding the conventions in different cities a couple of weeks apart. ... Yes, it would make sense to hold them back-to-back in the same city, but, see, we each have regional constituencies to target and —

Hello? Print media? Hello?

---

Yo! Taxpayers! Have you heard about these conventions we're hoping to start? Yes, they do sound like fun. Yes, we think so too.

But — and this is a little awkward, since you're not invited — it looks like the cost of putting on these events is going to be a bit beyond our budget. We're a little short, and you know how much things are these days: arena rentals, catering, limos, balloons, adjustable wood-and-alabaster podiums. It all adds up.

So, um, we were wondering if you could spare, like, oh, $75 million in federal funds to pay for additional security at our little gathering? And if it’s OK with you that there will be untold millions in lost tax revenue because business and professional convention expenses are tax-deductible?

What? Why, that suggestion is neither sanitary nor physically possible!

Please! The conventions will be a forum at which the major candidates and parties will stand before the nation to introduce and define themselves. They will be a massive display of democracy, our political system at work and a rootin'-tootin' good time for all swell insiders.

Hello? Hello? Taxpayers, you must be in a bad cell. We'll try you again later.

Of course, there's no way to separate these extravaganzas from the long and vital history that gives them such momentum. And even though the major commercial broadcast networks are doing their best to cut back, there's little chance we'll see the end of conventions any time soon.

Still, I'd like to see a warning label on the sides of the halls:

Conventions may be hazardous to your patience.

News & Views

News: It’s pander-monium as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris endorses a “no tax on tips” plan similar to one floated earlier by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

View: This is an idea so bad only cynical politicians could embrace it. It would impact comparatively few people.

A report on this idea from Yale University’s Budget Lab noted:

There were roughly 4 million workers in tipped occupations in 2023. That’s about 2 ½ percent of all employment. More than a third—37 percent—of tipped workers had incomes low enough that they faced no federal income tax in 2022, even before accounting for tax credits.

The Associated Press reported:

It would be complicated, not to mention enormously costly to the federal government, to enact. It would encourage many higher-paid workers to restructure their compensation to classify some of it as “tips” and thereby avoid taxes. … (For example), a company might set up a separate entity that would reward its employees with tips instead of year-end bonuses.

Axios predicted:

A no-tax-on-tips policy would incentivize workers to push harder for more tips. And their employers would be into it, happy to shift the burden of wages onto customers. Businesses, then, would have every reason to figure out more ways to push customers to tip.

And tips are income by any normal definition of income, as a Tribune editorial pointed out:

Tipped employees work hard but so do nontipped employees, who often make far less. There’s no reason to eliminate taxation on a single category of income. Not only would it cost the treasury $250 billion, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, it’s fundamentally unfair.

People pay taxes on wages, commissions, royalties, rental property, capital gains, side jobs, business income, alimony payments, gambling winnings, court awards, dividends, gig work, stuff they sell online, retirement plan distributions, prizes and any number of other categories dreamed up by the IRS.

Unfair, expensive and narrowly targeted. Harris should do better.

Mayor Brandon Johnson reportedly is seeking to oust his schools CEO Pedro Martinez due to Martinez’s negotiating positions with the Chicago Teachers Union.

View: My God, this looks terrible. Johnson, who worked as on organizer for the CTU and whose campaign for mayor was funded in part by more than $2.3 million from CTU and another $3.3 million from other teachers unions, is trying to dump Martinez for failing to agree to plunge the school system way deeper into debt to satisfy the union in contract talks.

It was among the things that those of us who were highly skeptical of Johnson feared: that he wanted his administration sitting side by side with the CTU during contract talks, not across the table. As the Sun-Times reports:

In a pair of rejections of Johnson’s ideas last month, Martinez refused to take on a pension payment that Johnson had insisted be paid by the school district and opposed a City Hall request that CPS take out a short-term, high-interest loan to cover the payment and a new CTU contract. On Tuesday, Martinez’s administration publicly painted the union’s contract proposals as unaffordable and warned they would plunge the district into a $2.9 billion deficit next year.

That’s more than five times the current budget debt. More:

The CTU, meanwhile, argued the spending is necessary to strengthen students’ academic and social progress and that the school district should be more creative and aggressive in its pursuit of additional revenue, including state and federal funding. … The union pointed to revenue initiatives that the city and state could explore, like more heavily taxing millionaires and corporations — which would require changes to state law — or seeking federal funding for school building improvements.

Yeah, unfortunately, that just hasn’t been going well. State and federal officials need to step up and provide more money for education. But firing the head of the school board because he doesn’t want to plunge the district into massive debt by spending tomorrow’s money on today’s union demands isn’t going to inspire sympathy from most lawmakers.

News: “Annual US inflation falls to 3-year low, clearing the way for the Fed to begin cutting rates.”

View: Republicans have been bleating about “rampant” inflation, saying it’s “out of control,” but I’m sure the good news that the rate is back under control won’t stop their piteous populist ululations.

Even as inflation — the rate of price increases — keeps slowing, many people are still struggling with daily costs that, on average, are still about 20% higher than they were three years ago. That’s true even though average U.S. wages have surpassed inflation for more than a year. … Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve’s Chicago branch, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press that the July data shows that inflation is clearly on track to return to the central bank’s 2% target.

Land of Linkin’

• CWBChicago: “Shoplifting reports in Chicago have soared 45% this year, making 2024 the worst year for retail theft in the city since at least 2003. … Increased theft reporting, rather than increased incidents, may be contributing to the surge. … Data and police records show that proximity to migrant shelters may be contributing to increases at some stores.” But also be sure to see “Debunking the Myth of the ‘Migrant Crime Wave’” by the Brennan Center for Justice.

• WBEZ: “Could pro-Palestinian march on the DNC help Trump? Protesters say it’s not their problem.” Not yet, anyway.

• News you can use from the Sun-Times: “Here's how to appeal your property tax assessment.” It’s easy, it’s risk-free and why the hell not?

• “Wyoming reporter caught using artificial intelligence to create fake quotes and stories.”

• Another double-answer WordWheel puzzle and a devilishly difficult variation on the WordWheel in Tuesday’s Picayune Plus.

• Public Work: “A search engine for public domain content. Explore 100,000+ copyright-free images from The MET, New York Public Library, and other sources.”

• “Fact Check: Did Stephen Curry Sink 5 Full-Court Shots in a Row?” Newsweek debunks as video trickery the amazing and fairly convincing viral clip of the basketball superstar throwing in a series of shots from a distance of some 90 feet. (See another angle here.)

• Politico: “Biden harbors lingering frustration at Pelosi, Obama, Schumer” for persuading him to leave.” “Biden has told his closest aides and associates that he is coming to terms with his decision to bow out of the presidential race last month, but still harbors some frustration toward the members of his own party he believes pushed him out … Biden views Pelosi as ‘ruthless’ and willing to set aside long-term relationships in order to keep her party in power — and, most importantly, to prevent Republican nominee Donald Trump from returning to the White House.” Thank God for Nancy Pelosi.

• Some interesting cons and well as pros about ranked-choice voting are outlined in this 2:41 video. It shows how a literally shitty candidate can get elected.

• Another good video: “Vance VP," a parody of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” by the Marsh Family.

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:

■ “Chicago just called his bluff”: The American Prospect’s Rick Perlstein says Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s threat to inundate the city with migrants ahead of the convention seems not to have worked, because, as “startled NASCAR fans learned in Chicago: They’re not so scary after all. Maybe they’re the best people we could possibly welcome.”

■ Charlie Sykes in The Atlantic: Donald Trump is setting the stage to challenge the election—and “could be even more dangerous this year than he was in 2020, because the personal stakes for him are higher than ever.”

■ Trump’s suggested he’s ready to flee to Venezuela if he loses.

■ Daily Show correspondent Josh Johnson is flummoxed by Trump’s new slur for Kamala Harris: “It feels racist, but why?”

■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “Trump is … getting stranger and stranger.”

■ “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver: “The Trump campaign has currently got absolutely nothing.”

■ ABC News has 2020 audio of Trump calling Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz an “excellent guy.”

■ Their emails! At least three news orgs—including The New York Times, Politico and The Washington Post—have been given a trove of confidential email from inside the Trump campaign, creating what columnist Brian Beutler calls “a moment of reckoning” for journalists who now “owe their readers frenzied coverage of his campaign’s emails, or a mea culpa for their history-altering emails fixation in 2016.”

■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Very little about this ‘Trump got hacked’ story makes one lick of sense.”

■ Know a sucker who thinks video of Harris’ rally crowds has been generated by artificial intelligence? Share this. 

■ NOTUS spotlights the one Senate race Trump doesn’t want to lose.

■ Coming next year: Your Illinois driver’s license on your phone.

■ WBEZ: After a wealthy family backed out of its commitment to fund college scholarships for needy Chicago kids, the program’s ex-staffers and big-hearted members of the public have stepped up to help.

■ Journalism that doesn’t suck: Stop the Presses media critic Mark Jacob hails a host of “bright lights in news and commentary that deserve our attention.” (Separately, Jacob says of Chicago Public Square: “Everyone in Chicago who cares about news should subscribe.”)

Listen to Mark Jacob! You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Chart of the week

Ladies and gentlemen, your “pro-life” party:

Mary Schmich: Thoughts after donating to a political campaign for the first time

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

As a newspaper journalist, I was never allowed to make campaign contributions. I give to a lot of causes, but even after leaving newspapers I haven't been able to shake the feeling that I shouldn't donate to a political campaign.

I also get a little queasy about where all those campaign contributions go.

But I just did it.

First time. Not a lot.

Just enough to say: We can do this. We have to do this.

Every election matters. This one really matters.

Now if I can only get the texts to stop.

Minced Words

Host John Williams was joined by me, Marj Halperin, Austin Berg and Brandon Pope (left to right above) for this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We discussed the issue of street protests next week during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, reports that Mayor Brandon Johnson is planning to fire his schools CEO and whether team USA Olympics gymnast Jordan Chiles should get to keep her bronze medal.

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.

Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately:

I’m not saying Trump’s campaign is dead but RFK Jr. just scooped it up and put it in his trunk. — Rick Aaron

Sometimes you just have to rip the Band-Aid off and close all the tabs. If it was meant to be, your paths will cross again — The People’s Fabric

Don't try to tell me MAGA Republicans care about “protecting children” when page 302 of Trump's Project 2025 playbook calls for eliminating safety regulations on baby formula. — Robert Reich

He didn't say that. And if he did say it, he didn't mean it. And if he did mean it, you didn't understand it. And if you did understand it, it's not a big deal. And if it is a big deal, others have said worse. — The Twisted Logic of a Trump Supporter, a meme on social media

Kamala Harris. You know, it's interesting. Nobody really knows her last name. If you ask people, do you know what her last name is? Nobody has any idea what it is. Harris. It’s like Harris. I don’t know. How the hell did this happen? — Donald Trump

On CNN, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance accused Democrats of engaging in name-calling and schoolyard bullying. Crooked Hillary, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Sleepy Joe, Coco Chow, Lyin Ted, Ron DeSanctimonious, Birdbrain Nikki Haley, Old Crow McConnell, Gavin Newscum, Pencil Neck Schiff, Pocahontas, Cryin Chuck, and Kamabla would all like a word. — Brian Tyler Cohen

Why don’t Republicans wear fake bandages when third-graders get shot? — Internet meme

I feel like one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville; to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people — Tim Walz

Helping Trump win because you can’t vote for Kamala Harris because of Gaza when Trump would gladly kill every Palestinian and put up hotels in Gaza and the West Bank, isn’t the flex some of y’all think it is. — Tim Wise

Republicans care so much about military service that they elected these three men president recently: Ronald Reagan, who served only in movies. George W. Bush, whose family pulled strings to get him in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War. His right to fly was suspended and he went AWOL. Donald Trump, a notorious draft dodger. — Betty Bowers

Walz is the guy I would ask to walk me home after a night class in college and Vance is the guy who’s the reason I would want an escort. — @OhNoSheTwitnt

They knew … a bonus collection of quotables from prominent Republicans

The following vintage quotes, cribbed from videos, appear in a new commercial for Democrat Kamala Harris:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina: I want to talk to the Trump supporters for a minute. I don't know who you are and I don't know why you like this guy. … He's a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot. … I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy. I think he's unfit for office.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas: Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing. The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist. A narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen. … He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies with practically every word that comes out of his mouth.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky: My concern is that he would grab up that power and really treat the country as sort of his little bully fiefdom. … Donald Trump is a delusional narcissist and an orange face wind bag.

Former South Carolina Gov. and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley: Donald Trump is everything I taught my children not to do in kindergarten.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida: He’s been exploiting working Americans for 40 years. … Donald Trump is a con artist.  

Former Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway:He says he's for the little guy, but he's actually built a lot of his businesses on the backs of the little guy.

Secretary of State under Trump Mike Pompeo: Donald Trump, the other day, said that if he tells a soldier to commit a war crime, the soldier will just go do it.

Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck: I don't think Donald Trump has has even read the Constitution or knows what's in the Constitution

Trump’s energy secretary and former Republican Gov. of Texas Rick Perry:  (Trump is) a toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness and nonsense.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine: I just cannot support Donald Trump.

A similar set of quotes appear in the short video, “Trump... From Those Who Know Him”

Haley: He was thin-skinned and easily distracted.

Pompeo: We can't be following celebri-leaders with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality.

Vice President under Trump Mike Pence: President Trump endangered my family.

National Security Advisor under Trump John Bolton: Donald Trump is not fit to be president. I have been in those rooms while he's met with those leaders. They think he's a laughing fool.

Attorney General under Trump Bill Barr : Our country can't be a therapy session for a troubled man.

Trump’s first White House chief of staff, John Kelly: (Trump is) a person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law. God help us.

Trump’s second White House chief of staff , Mick Mulvaney: He failed at being the president when we needed him to be that.

Quips

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 Quip of the Week:

• Stop blaming others for your mistakes. Study feng shui and blame the furniture. — @DianaG2772

• I just don't want my obituary to include the words "dental records." — @IamJackBoot

• Tattoos should actually make you more employable because they show you can sit in place for hours while tiny needles are jammed into your skin, and that’s what every corporate meeting I’ve ever been in has felt like. — @bananabeltbetty

• A local death metal group heard me getting out of a chair and just like that I’m their new vocalist. — @RickAaron

• *Too embarrassed to buy dildo* *Buys 3D printer* *Makes gun* *Holds up dildo store* — @FuckTyping

• Our youngest son graduated with a bachelor's degree in English. We bought him a car because we're proud of him. And because he'll probably have to live in it. — @JustBeingEmma

• When someone says “I expected more of you,” I’m always like, “Well who’s fault is that?” — @joeljeffrey

• Dentist: "That's the biggest cavity I've ever seen. That's the biggest cavity I've ever seen." Patient: "I heard you the first time. You didn't have to say it twice." Dentist: "I didn't. That was my echo." — @dadgivesjokes

• If you ever see a “𝐿𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝐿𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒” sign in my house, I've been taken hostage and am signaling for help. — @deloisivete

• Now that food has replaced sex in my life, I can't even get into my own pants. — @BobGolen

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Why the new name for this feature? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.”

Good Sports

Jordan Chiles deserves a bronze medal but shouldn’t get one. Fight me

USA Today has a good recap of the final controversy of the 2024 Summer Olympic games:

In the last routine of the floor exercise final, (American gymnast Jordan) Chiles garnered a score of 13.666, which included a deduction of one tenth of a point for an improper split leap, known as a tour jete full. That score put her fifth, behind both Ana Barbosu and another Romanian gymnast, Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. They both had scores of 13.700.

But then, in a move she later acknowledged was a bit of a Hail Mary, Chiles' coach, Cecile Landi, formally appealed that specific deduction, and the judges agreed. Chiles' score was thereby increased to 13.766, which moved her into third place ahead of the two Romanians, one of whom had already climbed onto the podium with a flag to celebrate.

The Romanian Gymnastics Federation felt the last-minute reversal was unfair, so they took the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, claiming that Landi had submitted the scoring appeal — officially known as an inquiry — four seconds past the allotted one minute in which she was permitted to do so.

The bronze medal was awarded to Barbosu based on a tie-breaker with her fellow Romanian. USA Gymnastics issued a statement:

The time-stamped, video evidence submitted by USA Gymnastics Sunday evening shows Landi first stated her request to file an inquiry at the inquiry table 47 seconds after the score is posted, followed by a second statement 55 seconds after the score was originally posted.

Then came this on social media.

The situation is further complicated because the chair of the panel that stripped Chiles of her bronze is the legal counsel to Romania at the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, which certainly is suggestive of a conflict of interest.

Taking away Chiles’ bronze medal clearly sucks either way, and the rules are stupid and arbitrary, especially the CAS’ refusal to accept conclusive evidence after the fact. But even stupid and arbitrary rules have to be enforced until they are officially changed. So stripping Chiles of her bronze was a terrible, unfair outcome, but the correct one. Do you agree?

The No-No Sox

Here is my weekly 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. Included in the comparison is the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, the worst team in baseball’s modern era (20th century on).

After 122 games:

The 1916 Philadelphia A’s played a 153-game season and finished 36-117. Out to another decimal place, that’s a winning percentage of .2353. The Sox play in a 162-game era. If they go 38-124, that will be a winning percentage of .2346. So the magic number of victories needed in the last 40 games of the season for the Sox to end up with 39 wins and a better winning percentage than the 1916 A’s is now 10. To win 10 games out of 40, the team has to have a winning percentage of .250, better than they’ve played so far this season.

The previous worst White Sox team ever was the 1932 club, which went 49-102 for a winning percentage of .325. The worst White Sox team in the era of the 162-game season was the 1970 club, which went 56-106 for a .346 winning percentage.

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 to email me 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 Tom Todd:

"Automatic Sun" by The Warning is from the group’s just released album "Keep Me Fed.” They are three sisters from Monterrey, Mexico — ages 24, 22 and 20 — and they rock in the style of Metallica and Motley Crue. I wish I could nominate the whole album because every song is great, especially "S!CK,","Apologize" and "MORE"

As a guy in my early 60s, I never expected three Gen Z females from Mexico to be the best new heavy metal band in the world, but here we are.

Burn in your automatic sun!
Look what you're doing to me
Give me your psychosomatic love!
Look what you're doing to me

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I read all the messages that come in, but I do most of my interacting with readers in the comments section beneath each issue.

Some of those letters I reprint and respond to in the Z-mail section of Tuesday’s Picayune Plus, which is delivered to paid subscribers and available to all readers later Tuesday. Check there for responses.

If you don’t want me to use the full name on your email or your comments, let me know how you’d like to be identified.

If you’re having troubles with Substack — delivery, billing and so forth — I’m happy to help.