Chicago plows its way back to the past

Nostalgia dominates the results of the "name the snowplow" contest

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2-7-23

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. Become a paid subscriber to receive each Picayune Plus in your email each Tuesday.

Nostalgia was the big winner in the ‘You Name a Snowplow’ poll

The top vote-getters in the recently concluded “You Name a Snowplow” contest were

Mrs. O’Leary’s Plow
Da Plow
Salter Payton
Sears Plower
Sleet Home Chicago
Holy Plow!
Jean Baptiste Point du Shovel

Some 17,000 voters picked up to six favorites from among 50 finalists, and the results suggest that our city is still living in the past.

Let’s date the references:

• Mrs. O’Leary’s Plow (1871) — A cow owned by the O’Leary family was falsely blamed for starting the Great Chicago Fire 152 years ago

• Da Plow (1991) — “Da Bears” was the catchphrase of the Bears Superfans on “Saturday Night Live” 32 years ago

• Salter Payton (1987) — The great Bears running back Walter Payton retired 36 years ago and died in 1999.

• Sears Plower (2009) — The Sears Tower has now been officially Willis Tower for roughly 14 years.

• Sleet Home Chicago (1936) — Robert Johnson first recorded “Sweet Home Chicago” nearly 90 years ago, though Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi did give the song a big boost 43 years ago by singing it in “The Blues Brothers” movie.

• Holy Plow! (1997) — “Holy cow!” was the signature home-run call of legendary White Sox/Cubs announcer Harry Caray, who called his last game for the team more than 25 years ago, just prior to his death in 1998.

• Jean Baptiste Point du Shovel (1800) — Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, considered the first permanent non-native settler of what would become Chicago, moved away some 223 years ago.

“Sweet Home Chicago” is, admittedly, a timeless unofficial anthem of the city and DuSable enjoyed renewed prominence in 2021 when Lake Shore Drive was renamed Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive in his honor after a prolonged civic debate.

Voters passed on names with more recent or current resonance such as LollaPLOWlooza, Chance the Scraper, City of Big Shovelers, Little Dibbie and O-Plow Winfrey (though the talk-show queen moved out of town in 2015).

Death silences a trusted voice

I want to second and amplify many of the tributes that flowed in following the news that Civic Federation president Laurence Msall died Saturday of complications following scheduled heart-valve surgery.

Like many local journalists, I consulted Msall many times over the years for straight talk about city and state budgetary matters, and I always found him truthful, thoughtful, patient and nonpartisan. He had a steady, oracular wisdom that sounded like it was of the ages, so I was surprised to learn that he was only 61.

Condolences to all who loved and truly knew him.

• Civic Federation chief Laurence Msall dies at 61 (Tribune)

• Laurence Msall, president of Civic Federation of Chicago, dies at 61 (Sun-Times)

• Mourning Laurence Msall (Illinois Playbook/Politico)

• Laurence J. Msall 1962 - 2023 (Legacy.com)

Notes and comments from readers —lightly edited —- along with my responses

Mayor’s race

Michael G. — It’s understandable that the Tribune's right-wing editorial board endorsed the most right-wing mayoral candidate, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas. But did the board members stop to consider that they were endorsing the only white candidate in a large field and a candidate with a record of administrative and political failure?  Perhaps it would have been wiser to sit this one out or, even better, to end the nonsensical practice of politically biased endorsements posing as some sort of collective wisdom.

Though I continue to give side-eye to the concept of newspaper endorsements and I have serious reservations about the whole idea of a newspaper having an institutional voice, I take issue with your assessment of the Tribune’s editorial position as “right-wing.” The board is pro choice, pro gay rights and it endorsed all Democrats in the most recent statewide elections. I’d still classify it as moderate Republican, but hardly “right-wing.”

I’m still undecided in the race, but I thought this passage from the endorsement was spot on:

Despite her formidable intellect and command of the issues, (incumbent Mayor Lori) Lightfoot has been reluctant to see this moment as time for any kind of leadership reboot. In essence, she has fervently defended her record and said that she has revealed no plans to change her personal style or her key team, including her unpopular police superintendent. She has not said she plans to operate so as to create more and firmer alliances among the roiling constituencies that make up this city. She does not see the need, and we sympathize, given all the noise she faces. But we also think she is not fully reading the moment.

Joan P. — Vallas spoke at an Awake Illinois fundraiser, he takes money from Donald Trump's Illinois finance chair Ron Gidwitz, and he wants to destroy the public schools. Hard pass.

I, too, have reservations about Vallas. I don’t care for how he has been cozying up to the right, including the Trumpy local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, and I’m wary of his zeal for “school choice.” I’m hoping in the next two-plus weeks we see a deep, investigatory dive by one of our news outlets into Vallas’ actual record of stewardship over the schools in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans.

Chris A. — Holding Chicago’s municipal elections in February is an overt act of voter suppression. It’s anti-democratic. It’s designed by cynical public policy makers more intent on holding onto their jobs than putting forth interesting and viable candidates. That Chicagoans have not exerted their will to change this is frustrating and depressing.

Early voting. Voting by mail. They all require an extra effort to bundle up and go someplace that isn’t home, either to wait in line or find a mailbox. In January or February. When it’s usually cold and/or snowing. To vote for a candidate you probably don’t know or care enough about to invest any of your effort on a Chicago winter’s day.

It’s maddening when registered adults don’t vote. It’s maddening that neighbors don’t see that voting for mayor or alderman or for a representative on the water reclamation board are all — really — more important than voting for president. Chicago sure doesn’t make it easy.

I’m not going to argue that there aren’t a lot of other factors at play that keep voters away. There’s plenty of apathy and cynicism to go around. The nine candidates for mayor have presented themselves as sincere and thoughtful. They deserve a chance to stand in Touhy Park on a sunny May afternoon to discuss the city’s homelessness and attract a representative audience of concerned neighbors eager to hear their ideas. Certainly that would be more democratic.

I agree that February is a rotten time for an election as it makes campaigning and getting to the polls somewhat more difficult than they would be in later months. It also makes for a tediously long general election season in even-numbered years. I’m surprised candidates never seem to be asked about this.

Your concerned neighbors have only to attend any one of numerous indoor mayoral forums or stream them online to evaluate the ideas of the various candidates. They each have websites as well.

And yes, it’s inclement on some days, but these folks seem to be able to get to the grocery store, the gas station, to restaurants and to their jobs. Asking them to make a side trip to an early voting site or walk a few blocks on Election Day is hardly unconscionable.

So I wouldn’t call the voter suppression “overt.” It’s fairly subtle and weak as well as unpredictable, and the idea that it gives incumbents a distinct advantage looks like it will be put to the test in three weeks.

Netflix

Martin H. — I just listened to last week’s “Mincing Rascals” podcast, and it seemed as though you, John Williams and Brandon Pope were OK with password sharing and critical of Netflix for trying to crack down on the practice.  But would you be so generous — or are you so generous — with your own work? You’ve said you have more than a thousand paid subscribers to the Picayune Sentinel.  Do you allow paid subscribers to share their account access with family and friends?  I wonder if Brandon Pope would be so enthusiastic about "creating community" through password sharing if he made money through subscriptions. Netflix has the right to run their business the way they see fit.  If consumers don't like it, they’ll go to other sources for content.  But I don’t expect Netflix to provide free service outside of my home to my friends and family. 

I agree that Netflix can do what it wants and that limiting access to those who have paid for it is defensible. My doubts had to do with the wisdom of a super strict crackdown that would have limited the ability of, say, college students to use their parents’ Netflix account when away at school. It sounded to me like a tactic that might lose the company money in the long run.

Evidently Netflix agreed. Parade reported Friday:

Netflix is backtracking on its new password usage rules after an initial set of guidelines went viral earlier this week, sending users into furious tweet storms and threatening to cancel their subscriptions.

The posted rules included a requirement for all devices using the same account to be linked to the same Wi-Fi, for all devices to log in and stream on that Wi-Fi every 31 days, and for a user to set a primary location, which has to be a television, leaving regular travellers, college students, and many more demanding to know how the company would accommodate them.

Now, the company is alleging that those rules only apply to account holders in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, and that they went live in other countries by mistake. “For a brief time yesterday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries,” a spokesperson for Netflix told The Streamable, adding,“We have since updated it.” Those rules, which had been posted on Netflix's website, have been removed.

When “sharing” becomes “stealing” is a good discussion. As for the Sentinel, I’m more interested in readership numbers than subscriber revenue at this point. I know people share item links and cut and paste or forward portions of the newsletter, and I’m thrilled about that. But I don’t have shareholders to answer to or little mouths to feed.

Nix ‘Actress’?

Steven K. — Regarding your call to stop using the word “actress,” I decided to quiz a random sampling of women to see what they thought. The results of my completely unscientific poll of about 30 women were decisive, with 0% desiring any notable change from the status quo. Some were receptive to the reasoning behind departing from the actor/actress dichotomy, but when I posited it in actual descriptors like “the actor Meryl Streep” or “the actor Barbara Stanwyck”, they all more or less said that it struck the wrong chord. None of them had any problem with “waitress” (one even cleverly coined “servestress” as a gender specific alternate term), nor did any like the idea that the makers of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Ho’s should be rechristened as Host. But the biggest pushback came when I informed them of the changes in monarchal titles that this logic would demand: Megan Markle is now the Duke of Sussex, Sarah Ferguson is now the Duke of York, the late and beloved former Diana Spencer must now be referred to as Prince Diana, and Grace Kelly was a famous actor who became Prince of Monaco. The respondents in my survey met these suggestions with replies like “tsk”, “ugh”, and “God!”, with one woman thrusting both hands open palmed toward me and intoning “no, no, NO!”. Again, a completely unscientific poll, but pretty convincing evidence that the driving force behind these ideas is not as much women who feel marginalized as it is progressives who are intent on fixing anything that isn’t broken.

I had never considered the Hostess brand name to be offensive (though some have pointed out that some of their more famous offerings sound like euphemisms for naughty bits) but perhaps I need to rethink my stance.

Tell me, does “the comedian Amy Schumer” strike the wrong chord with you and those you surveyed? What about “the author Kate Atkinson”? Or do you still prefer comedienne and authoress?

Thumbs down on thumbs down

Bob E. — I know you don't control the tech behind Substack. but perhaps you could ask them to institute a 👍/👎 option in place of the heart (“like”) emoji on comments. Sometimes I want to disagree with the writer of an opinion but don't want to write a diatribe in opposition.

I suppose the feeling is that there’s enough negativity in the world and adding a “dislike” option would only fuel that. I don’t offer a “none of the above” option for Tweet of the Week for the same reason.

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 I use for that poll does not allow me to include 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.

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll! It’s very close at the top.

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