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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.
The unfriendly skies
As our plane taxied to the gate Sunday night at the end of our flight home from Boston, a flight attendant announced that several passengers needed to disembark very quickly in order to make their connecting flights and asked all other passengers to please remain seated until those in a hurry could make their way off.
The collective answer: Like hell!
As soon as we stopped, people stood quickly in the aisle as they always do to retrieve their bags from the overhead rack and to join the queue of those waiting for the jetway doors to open. Johanna allowed the anxious woman in the window seat to slide ahead of her and into the aisle, but the woman then simply stood and waited as the entire plane in front of her emptied out.
For the plan to succeed, everyone needed to cooperate. Airplane aisles are too narrow to allow anyone to squeeze past, so as soon as one selfish person created a dam, all the others assume it would be pointless to sit there obediently while others leave the plane.
Flight attendants must know this. I’m sure they have a keen understanding of human nature from their frequent encounters with testy, frustrated passengers. So my guess is they make this futile announcement to deflect anger away from the airline when people miss their connections.
The only time I have seen such a request work was years ago when a flight attendant identified a couple seated near the back of the plane, had them raise their hands, and asked everyone to let them off first so they could catch their flight home. Putting a face on the problem — identifying actual beneficiaries — inspired every other passenger to let them scurry to the front as soon as the “fasten seatbelt” light was turned off.
My trip began last Monday when I headed to the airport to catch a 10 a.m. American Airlines flight to Boston.
I was standing on a CTA platform when I received a text saying my flight was cancelled and I was now to take a late-afternoon flight to Philadelphia with a long layover followed by a connection to Boston.
Note the lack of regret — let alone explanation — in the message. I mean, yes, things happen, even on clear days, but given the simultaneous gut punch this message was delivering to about 150 customers the text could at least feigned sympathy.
Fortunately I wasn’t headed to a wedding, ballgame or important afternoon work meeting. A friendly customer service representative at O’Hare International Airport was able to book me on a direct flight leaving seven hours later— a little after 5 p.m.. I then joined a sorry knot of my fellow flight 1194 cancelees shuffling all day from futile stand-by opportunity to futile stand-by opportunity.
I had my iPad. I had my phone. I had my chargers and access to comfortable seats in waiting areas. I got to my destination on Cape Cod at least a couple of hours before I would have had I just gotten in the car that morning and driven there. I acknowledge that there are people with worse problems.
The time-cost of hassle free boarding is roughly 15 minutes, and well worth it.
The fee of $30 and up for a checked bag inspires most passengers to try to lug aboard their suitcases and fight for space in the overhead bins. Accordingly, gate agents at every flight I’ve taken in the last few years have issued an offer/plea for volunteers in the waiting area to surrender their carry-on bags to be checked as standard luggage, free of charge. This offer/plea nearly always becomes a demand as the last groups prepare to board.
I’ve become quick to volunteer. I give them my bag, then I wait to board until the absolute final call, thus limiting the time I have to spend sitting with my knees pressed into a seatback. My knapsack always fits under the seat in front of me.
The drawback is that after we land I have to go to baggage claim instead of directly to the exits. The average delay is a little under 15 minutes, a fair trade off.
While I’m on the subject of flying, Henry Grabar explains in Slate why "air travel is a mess right now”—
The problem, everyone agrees, began when air travel cratered during the global lockdowns to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Airlines downsized, cut flights, and offered buyouts to senior staff. … virtually every airline says it is short on pilots. American Airlines parked 100 planes for lack of pilots. Pilot unions have complained of being overworked. … Airlines want to hire 13,000 pilots this year and again in 2023, but United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby says it will take five years for the shortage to abate. … Airports and airplanes are also struggling to fill other roles, from baggage handlers to airplane mechanics. While pilot shortages have forced airlines to crimp their schedules, it’s shortages in other professions that is causing day-to-day mayhem.
Notes and comments from readers —lightly edited —- along with my responses
Marc M — You presented a good overview of the positive talking points that Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s team will use during his re-election campaign this fall and, possibly, when he runs for president. But that list assigns him credit for a lot of legislation that was spearheaded by leaders in the General Assembly. He just signed the bills.
Further, Pritzker deserves blame for COVID-19 deaths at the veterans' home and for ongoing dysfunction at the Illinois Department of Employment Security, which took months to pay claimants, had a backlog of 20,000 calls, and paid out tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent claims.
Then there is the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which oversees dozens of cases of abuse and death in the system annually, and whose leader has been held in contempt of court a dozen times because children are being kept in mental wards, in closets and on couches.
There's also the Illinois State Police, who still have thousands of backlogged forensic kits in their lab. They also are taking three to five times longer than the law demands to renew Firearms Owner Identification cards while failing to prevent reported dangerous people from getting cards and failing to see that guns are removed from people that have their cards revoked.
Pritzker is also the guy that said we needed a huge tax increase to go with his new graduated income tax in order to keep the lights on, but having lost that, now claims we have a surplus that allows him to give out a big tax cut while still increasing spending.
Then there is the Illinois unemployment rate, which is among the highest in the country and a full point higher than the national average. And don’t forget the botched rollout of the equity cannabis licenses for growing, distribution, and retail that delayed the minority entrepreneurs by over two years.
And, finally, there is the massive unfounded pension liability, which will be far worse this year with a significant increase in the cost of future borrowing.
He kept schools closed unnecessarily and tanked the economy with excessive business shutdowns.
But other than that he is doing a fine job.
The question for voters is not going to be “did Pritzker turn Illinois into Shangri-La?” but “did he perform well under the difficult circumstances of the last few years compared to other governors and compared to how the state would have fared under the leadership of a Bruce Rauner or a Darren Bailey?”
I’m not going to counter or underscore all your accusations, as I’m sure we’ll hear them debated when the fall campaign gets going. But, yes, certain state agencies and institutions were and have been overwhelmed during the pandemic. Pension underfunding remains a problem, but not a problem of Pritzker’s making or one you can pin solely on the Democrats. I wrote about the complicity of Republican governors in that problem in this 2016 column, but if you want the full, gory story, read Ray Long’s new book, “The House that Madigan Built.”
Chloe Z. — My friends and I have been following the issue of Natural Organic Reduction (also called human composting) for some time now and are wondering if there’s anything we can do to promote enabling legislation.
I know some have religious objections to that method of disposal of the human body, but my religious friends and I doubt that God would have any issues with it.
A phrase in the burial service in the Book of Common Prayer commits the body “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and composting does exactly that. And because human composting ends up feeding the land more than any other method of burial, we feel God surely approves.
How can we promote this option?
Write to Chicago Democratic state Rep. Kelly Cassidy — repcassidy@gmail.com — to urge her to reintroduce her bill to permit the practice in Illinois.
Harris M. — I want to thank three Chicago Police Department officers for their restraint and good judgment on the night of July 20. I watched from across the street as they were subjected to extended obscene abuse from a guy on a bicycle just north of Randolph Street on Michigan Avenue at about 10 p.m.. It took a tremendous amount of restraint and good judgement for the three officers to stand by and let the guy go. That could not have been easy. I'm not sure I could have done it.
Obviously police misconduct is a significant issue. But, just as obviously, police officers have a very difficult job — emotionally and physically — and we ask them to respond with purposeful equanimity to often outrageous provocations. Your story is a reminder that, most often, they do.
Jay G. — I enjoyed the item about your problems with ear wax. It's an everyday affliction that many people deal with but are embarrassed to talk about. I was surprised how persistent your buildup was as well as the extent of the treatments needed to alleviate it.
Thanks. I received numerous sympathetic notes from those who resonated with my now-former-but-probably-future problem with debilitating blockage. It’s evidently such an issue with so many people that I’m surprised there aren’t storefront boutiques that specialize in removal of impacted cerumen and have cute names such as “Ear-rigation,” “The Ear-y Canal” and “Unwaxing Philosophical.” To refresh your memory about my story, the mini vacuum at the ENT’s office really did the trick when other methods had been only partially successful.
Ya gotta see these tweets!
I often run across tweets that rely on visual humor and so can’t be included in the Tweet of the Week contest (the template for the poll does not allow the use of images). Here are a few good ones I’ve come across recently:
Vote for your favorite. I’ll share the winner in Thursday’s main edition. And yes, I blurred out a portion of the Hercules image.
There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll!
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Marc M. Is right! Pritzker is an ok governor but the mess at the Employment Security Office and his failed graduated income tax push, along with his inability to even try to get our structural pension issues addressed is proof he is no leader. If he hadn’t spent his millions to subvert Irvin’s candidacy he might not have been re-elected and he knows that. So now before he even starts his second term he is gearing up for a presidential run? He certainly won’t be risking any political capital to actually fix Illinois!
An advantage to living in Chicago is never having to rush to catch a connecting flight at ORD...