29 out of 32 "visiting team" tweets on top line won the first round of the tweet tournement. I wonder if there is an order effect? Of does the software randomize order when tweets are presented for voting?
I figured it would be as the weekly poll is randomized. Perhaps simply the winner is normally reported first then. Not sure what happened to the three reported in the other order. :-)
“… it seems obvious to me that Hispanics deserve at least equal representation with Blacks on the council.”
Perhaps that makes sense if race or skin color is the only factor you look at. How that squares with a color-blind and postracial society isn’t clear. Pick any other political factor and substitute it. “It seems obvious to me that pro-choice proponents deserve at least equal representation with pro-life supporters on the council.” Or police supporters versus defund the police fans.
The point is, elevating a single factor to drive the selection of boundaries is fraught no matter which one you choose. Ideally, carving up maps should be blind to politics and demographics, including race and ethnicity.
It's not the only factor *I* look at, but the political coalitions look at it quite strongly and the Voting Rights Act demands that it be a significant factor in how boundaries are drawn. To be clear, I am not the one counting up ward majorities. What I am saying is that since this is a major factor for consideration, fairness would dictate a more equitable balance.
The idea of non-geographical representation -- interest group voting -- is one I haven't given a lot of thought to but is certainly thinkable/doable in the modern world. A senator representing pro-choice interests makes as much sense as a senator (two actually) representing North Dakota. How that would work in practice I don't know, but... discuss!
It may be a major factor for consideration, but I reject the premise that it should be. By making it a factor, Congress embraced some very questionable assumptions on how the racial and ethnic makeup of a population might influence the type of society they wanted us to be. I'd like to believe in a less ideological form of one-person, one-vote, without a government thumb on the scale to tilt the system in any direction. To that end, and embracing your family's mathematical heritage, perhaps you could explore how it might be possible to develop a sound, objective model for drawing lines on a map without preconceived ideas of fairness based on different interpretations of the word "fair".
Well you could certainly start in one corner of the city or state and make something like a box, square as possible, containing one distrtict's worth of people, then continue on doing so making as neat a grid as possible given the irregular contours of cities and states. This would stand to split "communities of interest," but I live in a small neighborhood area on the Northwest Side that is cut nearly in two by City Council boundaries -- our very good friends who live two blocks away not crossing any busy streets are in a different ward -- and we're FINE. The concept of "communities of interest" can be bullshit except when cynical mapmakers split them up to dilute certain votes. For instances, I'm told that a major, liberal city in a red state has been carved up in such a way as to distribute those liberal voters into numerous conservative disricts so that they are a distinct minority in each district, thus diminihsing liberal/Democratic representation. I don't have those facts at my fingertips so don't want to get more specific than that, but it's well known that this happens AND it's well known that Democrats do the same to Republicans when they have the chance, so I'm not trying to make a partisan point. The broader point is that it's very difficult to draw maps that have a neutral result -- which ought to be the goal, right? -- without looking at the makeup of the population. FiveThirtyEight did a great podcast series a few years ago on how complicated is this issue that many people seem to think it very simple. I'll look for the link.
I would never argue that it's a simple issue. It's not. However I would say that a neutral result is in the eye of the beholder. One person's neutral result might be another's idea of a horrible injustice. The goal should be, rather, a mapmaking process with a neutral intent. Maybe the word "neutral" is too vague, so say the aim should be a process that does not take color, ethnicity or presumed political beliefs into account. Your grid approach is as good as any. It would produce an outcome that neither intentionally benefits or harms any group.
Cracking and packing is the name of the gerrymandering game! If you are Rs, you break up D places, ensuring that they are a minority in multiple majority R districts. You can't do that entirely, though, so you then "pack" as many Ds into as few districts as possible (in this case, that long one that stretches from Austin to San Antonio), "wasting" as many of their votes as possible. Neat!
By the way, reading you swear now after so many Trib years feels like running into your teacher at the grocery store -- a little awkward. But I guess you're the proprietor now, dammit, so cuss it up!
Yeah, I was thinking about mentioning the swearing too. I’m not a prude, but frankly, it tends to cheapen your whole enterprise here. It does seem to reflect how our society has gone, but it would be nice if you could set a higher standard for yourself and your readers.
I think that map making is a pretty simple thing (but I want to hear the podcast) until social engineering is introduced. A geometric/arithmetic approach can be easily programmed to produce a map with simple, nearly square, properly populated areas. I am also certain that, for Chicago, it would also produce majority-minority wards. But as soon as specific objectives are added for any groups then things get complicated. While I understand the history, I think it is time to drop the minority requirements. In the current circumstance, I agree that the Hispanic Caucus has a good case and I hope that forcing a referendum will give the People's Map a shot. But the requirement for a tribal, race/ethnic specific map is revolting and counter to any concept of a unified polity. This map discussion also continues the logical absurdity of Hispanics and Asians as cohesive ethnic pools, requiring their own special representation. The idea of throwing in 'interest groups' seems even more absurd to me. 'Interests' are transient political concerns that are merely components of the total political landscape. Enshrining concerns of single-issue voters in the map is a bizarre intrusion into the purpose of representatives and parties. The idea would seem to require the addition of a new type of representative for each 'interest' or pool of interests (e.g. women's wages or women's issues). And the dozens or hundreds of these would then work as a team in coordination with the general purpose representative? The specialists only vote on specialist issues? They get to cover everything, meaning specialist first and generalist second? Does every activist and lobbying group get to join in? Who decides which interests are worthy? Do interest districts overlay regular districts or do they get to cross regular district boundaries? Do we get pro and con representatives (e.g. a national election for pro-choice and pro-life representatives with some sort of ratio to total votes cast)? This adds a whole new concept of factionalism to the racial/ethnic tribalism. Geography is the simplest, least divisive, and most politically neutral way to pool citizens for selecting representatives.
I hate how the leaders in the Tweet of the Week poll are always the ones that take a political position most readers agree with. *I* agree too! But making a point I agree with is not the same as being funny.
In the past I have done separate political/non-political polls because, yes, sharply worded political observations that may or may not qualify as funny tend to do better than, say, jokes about Wang Chung.
On The Minscing Rascals this week, the panel discussed Gillette being under pressure to stop supplying Russia with shaving products. Eric described the effect of large corporations pulling out of the Russian economy as "death by a thousand cuts." Nicely done!
I like how Mary Schmich highlights once routine excursions that now have become adventurous for many of us, using her sister as an example. It’s like we’re emerging from pandemic winter into a new season, or what I like to call a new normal.
Personally, I’m still hesitant to wander too far, still carefully masking up. Last week, my daughter attended her first movie theater showing in over two years, ecstatic at how much she enjoyed the experience as if for the first time.
As usual, Mary’s insightful writing captures the moment.
I really don’t have something right on the tip of my tongue to say about the Smollett drama, but one thing that bothers me about it all is this nagging sense of – although I’m persuaded it isn’t the case – his possible innocence. He’s been convicted and so he is guilty in the eyes of the court, but I still say to myself, “what if he is really innocent?”
It is with a larger degree of legal certainty than doubt that he’s been convicted, but what legitimate doubt is there if any? I mean, maybe it has nothing to do with Smollett’s case and is more generally the question of doubt in judgment that can yield an ambiguous verdict – what exactly is the standard of “reasonable doubt”?
For sure, it is a subjective question, and one warranting reasonable judgement in any given contest: How do 12 jurors conclude guilt or innocence in deliberations? And we all know of the infamous “bias” involved in trying cases, and how does that play out in one situation or another?
I’m just trying to get at the general sense of possible innocence in a guilty verdict or the possibility of actual guilt in an innocent verdict. It seems to me that it is almost always a nagging possibility in jurisprudence and hangs there shrouded behind the actual verdict in any typical case.
Not that he is, but what if Smollett or any convicted criminal were really wrongfully convicted or exonerated, how would we ever really know?
He never had a credible story as far as I could tell. His original story of mythical MAGA men made no sense from the start. Then the brothers copped to it, and I believe their participation was corroborated. The question then became, why would they do the attack and stage it to look like a hate crime if Smollett hadn't asked them to? How would they even know he would be out at that time, when, according to him, he was making an impromptu late-night Subway run? Neither he nor his lawyers nor apparently the jury could make the evidence fit together in any other plausible way. Do you have a handle on a possible version of the events as we know them where Smollett is innocent? (I ask sincerely.)
Somehow we have to believe that the brothers were willing to hang out near Jussie's apartment on a very, very cold night well after midnight on what would have been an off off chance that he would leave on an errand after having returned from a long trip. OR we would have to believe that the brothers werent' the attackers and admitted to it to get famous and that some random MAGA dudes did happen to be wandering by with, you know, a handy length of rope to fake a lynching and happened to see Jussie and think they could get away with attacking him.
"Do you have a handle on a possible version of the events as we know them where Smollett is innocent? (I ask sincerely.)" --JakeH
No -- well said, perspicuous analysis!
But are more ambiguous verdicts sometimes troubling?
I'm really asking about the general case where we're left asking if the party was convicted wrongfully or exonerated when actually guilty. Is there a lingering, bothersome question in those cases?
A case like Darlie Lynn Peck Routier's, the Texas woman on death row -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie_Routier -- convicted of murdering one son and committing the capital murder of another. There is ambiguity around the interpretation of facts in this case that has gleaned public attention and seems to support the conclusion of possible/actual innocence.
Clearly, she is guilty in the eyes of the court, but what if she were actually innocent?
A sad fact of life. There frequently is a lack of certainty. Criminals are rarely caught in the act or faced with undeniable evidence. Trials and juries are the best we have. Which is one reason why death penalties are a problem and why courts and prosecutors should always be open to the presentation of new evidence. There are plenty of examples of overturned convictions. I would not want to be on a jury in a circumstantial case. But I believe that we need to temper our concerns, and for the most part, a jury is a pretty good tool for finding reasonableness.
Indeed; lots of wrongful convictions in our own back yard! Happens all too frequently. I'm sure some innocent people have even been executed and not in the distant past. (Google Cameron Todd Willingham, for example.)
I personally think judges should take a more active role in overturning convictions that do not meet the very high "moral certainty" "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of factual proof. As it stands, they *could* overturn convictions for this reason, but as a matter of practice, they are very reluctant to, preferring to defer to juries. Part of this is tradition, but part of it may be the fact that criminal court judges are often elected and are more likely to have a prosecution background than a defense background.
Re Broccoli Shy…my adult daughters still enjoy singing a family favorite called “Broccoli Lasagna”, (sung to the tune of Hakuna Matata) about a one-time dinner I made that they all hated.
Just as Jussie Smolett’s nonsense hurt legitimate victims of hate crimes, Kim Foxx using this case as an example of racial injustice hurts the many African American people who have been victimized by an inequitable system. .
Agreed. She also damages the very idea of a reform minded prosecutor, undermines the clarity of what needs to be fixed, and promotes the belief that no progress is being made. I found it particularly insulting that she would mention the cases of 20 missing black women in her criticism of misplaced resources, as if there were some links to the Smollett prosecution.
I am frequently frustrated at the length of time required to complete investigations of seemingly uncomplicated events - as with the Stillman case. But in this instance, I also am also suspicious of the timing of the Foxx news conference to combine the Toledo and Alvarez announcements to coincide with the Smollett news stories. Possibly misplaced, but for me, another result of a public official forfeiting the public trust. Along with the absurdity of not charging Roman with child endangerment, there is little reason to trust her judgement and every reason to suspect her motives.
I had to laugh at the Northwestern student government closed meeting position. I can't imagine that they would say the same rules should apply to the Evanston or Chicago governments. I agree that it is a clear attempt to protect themselves and reduce their need for self-censorship. It also displays their fear of the campus community and other campus organizations, not to mention the broader internet world. My guess is that even their 'enlightened' members fear blundering in their comments. I also have to wonder at how they think they will produce non-controversial minutes. In addition to withholding speaker names, will they also sanitize the language to make it entirely inoffensive to any possible audience that deserves protection? A sad state of affairs for the university and it's misguided leadership.
I don't care what names are on Chicago Schools. I think that it would be safest and cheapest to just name them for the neighborhood they are in or the street they are on. I also think that the adults are overthinking the impact of the school's name on the students. I doubt that many of them make any sort of connection of the name to a person or ideals. I also don't see how they would find any person (American or not) that would be an apt model for a diverse and constantly changing student body. I went to Blackhawk Junior High (long gone) which had a picture and sign with some facts which I barely noticed. It was only in my 50's that I read 'The Autobiography of Blackhawk" and learned something about this fascinating and complex man. The sanitized shorthand of him is noble defender of Native American rights, but his much more complex story is mixed, like Daniel Boone shorthand is incomplete. FYI, my elementary school was named by the street and my high school had a township name.
“There are Americans dumb enough to complain about gas prices while donating money to an alleged billionaire for a new private plane, in case you wondered how we haven’t been able to stop the spread of COVID in this country yet. —“
That’s a great diagnosis of why Covid goes in in this country. Eric, when you select non-sequitors like this, I assume you endorse the message.
Seems like they are not the only ones these days to have embraced the strategy of "double down liar" Donald Trump.
29 out of 32 "visiting team" tweets on top line won the first round of the tweet tournement. I wonder if there is an order effect? Of does the software randomize order when tweets are presented for voting?
It's supposed to be randomized
I figured it would be as the weekly poll is randomized. Perhaps simply the winner is normally reported first then. Not sure what happened to the three reported in the other order. :-)
Reading about Gina Schmich's ride made my day. I hope she can continue her adventures.
“… it seems obvious to me that Hispanics deserve at least equal representation with Blacks on the council.”
Perhaps that makes sense if race or skin color is the only factor you look at. How that squares with a color-blind and postracial society isn’t clear. Pick any other political factor and substitute it. “It seems obvious to me that pro-choice proponents deserve at least equal representation with pro-life supporters on the council.” Or police supporters versus defund the police fans.
The point is, elevating a single factor to drive the selection of boundaries is fraught no matter which one you choose. Ideally, carving up maps should be blind to politics and demographics, including race and ethnicity.
It's not the only factor *I* look at, but the political coalitions look at it quite strongly and the Voting Rights Act demands that it be a significant factor in how boundaries are drawn. To be clear, I am not the one counting up ward majorities. What I am saying is that since this is a major factor for consideration, fairness would dictate a more equitable balance.
The idea of non-geographical representation -- interest group voting -- is one I haven't given a lot of thought to but is certainly thinkable/doable in the modern world. A senator representing pro-choice interests makes as much sense as a senator (two actually) representing North Dakota. How that would work in practice I don't know, but... discuss!
It may be a major factor for consideration, but I reject the premise that it should be. By making it a factor, Congress embraced some very questionable assumptions on how the racial and ethnic makeup of a population might influence the type of society they wanted us to be. I'd like to believe in a less ideological form of one-person, one-vote, without a government thumb on the scale to tilt the system in any direction. To that end, and embracing your family's mathematical heritage, perhaps you could explore how it might be possible to develop a sound, objective model for drawing lines on a map without preconceived ideas of fairness based on different interpretations of the word "fair".
Well you could certainly start in one corner of the city or state and make something like a box, square as possible, containing one distrtict's worth of people, then continue on doing so making as neat a grid as possible given the irregular contours of cities and states. This would stand to split "communities of interest," but I live in a small neighborhood area on the Northwest Side that is cut nearly in two by City Council boundaries -- our very good friends who live two blocks away not crossing any busy streets are in a different ward -- and we're FINE. The concept of "communities of interest" can be bullshit except when cynical mapmakers split them up to dilute certain votes. For instances, I'm told that a major, liberal city in a red state has been carved up in such a way as to distribute those liberal voters into numerous conservative disricts so that they are a distinct minority in each district, thus diminihsing liberal/Democratic representation. I don't have those facts at my fingertips so don't want to get more specific than that, but it's well known that this happens AND it's well known that Democrats do the same to Republicans when they have the chance, so I'm not trying to make a partisan point. The broader point is that it's very difficult to draw maps that have a neutral result -- which ought to be the goal, right? -- without looking at the makeup of the population. FiveThirtyEight did a great podcast series a few years ago on how complicated is this issue that many people seem to think it very simple. I'll look for the link.
I would never argue that it's a simple issue. It's not. However I would say that a neutral result is in the eye of the beholder. One person's neutral result might be another's idea of a horrible injustice. The goal should be, rather, a mapmaking process with a neutral intent. Maybe the word "neutral" is too vague, so say the aim should be a process that does not take color, ethnicity or presumed political beliefs into account. Your grid approach is as good as any. It would produce an outcome that neither intentionally benefits or harms any group.
You might be thinking of Travis County (Austin), Texas, shown here:
https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2018-02-09/u-s-congress/
Cracking and packing is the name of the gerrymandering game! If you are Rs, you break up D places, ensuring that they are a minority in multiple majority R districts. You can't do that entirely, though, so you then "pack" as many Ds into as few districts as possible (in this case, that long one that stretches from Austin to San Antonio), "wasting" as many of their votes as possible. Neat!
By the way, reading you swear now after so many Trib years feels like running into your teacher at the grocery store -- a little awkward. But I guess you're the proprietor now, dammit, so cuss it up!
Yeah, I was thinking about mentioning the swearing too. I’m not a prude, but frankly, it tends to cheapen your whole enterprise here. It does seem to reflect how our society has gone, but it would be nice if you could set a higher standard for yourself and your readers.
I think that map making is a pretty simple thing (but I want to hear the podcast) until social engineering is introduced. A geometric/arithmetic approach can be easily programmed to produce a map with simple, nearly square, properly populated areas. I am also certain that, for Chicago, it would also produce majority-minority wards. But as soon as specific objectives are added for any groups then things get complicated. While I understand the history, I think it is time to drop the minority requirements. In the current circumstance, I agree that the Hispanic Caucus has a good case and I hope that forcing a referendum will give the People's Map a shot. But the requirement for a tribal, race/ethnic specific map is revolting and counter to any concept of a unified polity. This map discussion also continues the logical absurdity of Hispanics and Asians as cohesive ethnic pools, requiring their own special representation. The idea of throwing in 'interest groups' seems even more absurd to me. 'Interests' are transient political concerns that are merely components of the total political landscape. Enshrining concerns of single-issue voters in the map is a bizarre intrusion into the purpose of representatives and parties. The idea would seem to require the addition of a new type of representative for each 'interest' or pool of interests (e.g. women's wages or women's issues). And the dozens or hundreds of these would then work as a team in coordination with the general purpose representative? The specialists only vote on specialist issues? They get to cover everything, meaning specialist first and generalist second? Does every activist and lobbying group get to join in? Who decides which interests are worthy? Do interest districts overlay regular districts or do they get to cross regular district boundaries? Do we get pro and con representatives (e.g. a national election for pro-choice and pro-life representatives with some sort of ratio to total votes cast)? This adds a whole new concept of factionalism to the racial/ethnic tribalism. Geography is the simplest, least divisive, and most politically neutral way to pool citizens for selecting representatives.
I hate how the leaders in the Tweet of the Week poll are always the ones that take a political position most readers agree with. *I* agree too! But making a point I agree with is not the same as being funny.
In the past I have done separate political/non-political polls because, yes, sharply worded political observations that may or may not qualify as funny tend to do better than, say, jokes about Wang Chung.
On The Minscing Rascals this week, the panel discussed Gillette being under pressure to stop supplying Russia with shaving products. Eric described the effect of large corporations pulling out of the Russian economy as "death by a thousand cuts." Nicely done!
I'm not sure that was me. Listeners? https://wgnradio.com/wgn-plus/the-mincing-rascals/the-mincing-rascals-3-16-22-march-madness-jussie-smollett-and-chicagos-vaccine-mandate/
I like how Mary Schmich highlights once routine excursions that now have become adventurous for many of us, using her sister as an example. It’s like we’re emerging from pandemic winter into a new season, or what I like to call a new normal.
Personally, I’m still hesitant to wander too far, still carefully masking up. Last week, my daughter attended her first movie theater showing in over two years, ecstatic at how much she enjoyed the experience as if for the first time.
As usual, Mary’s insightful writing captures the moment.
I'm really glad to be helping Mary reach a larger audience with her writing these days. Quite a few people eschew Facebook.
I really don’t have something right on the tip of my tongue to say about the Smollett drama, but one thing that bothers me about it all is this nagging sense of – although I’m persuaded it isn’t the case – his possible innocence. He’s been convicted and so he is guilty in the eyes of the court, but I still say to myself, “what if he is really innocent?”
It is with a larger degree of legal certainty than doubt that he’s been convicted, but what legitimate doubt is there if any? I mean, maybe it has nothing to do with Smollett’s case and is more generally the question of doubt in judgment that can yield an ambiguous verdict – what exactly is the standard of “reasonable doubt”?
For sure, it is a subjective question, and one warranting reasonable judgement in any given contest: How do 12 jurors conclude guilt or innocence in deliberations? And we all know of the infamous “bias” involved in trying cases, and how does that play out in one situation or another?
I’m just trying to get at the general sense of possible innocence in a guilty verdict or the possibility of actual guilt in an innocent verdict. It seems to me that it is almost always a nagging possibility in jurisprudence and hangs there shrouded behind the actual verdict in any typical case.
Not that he is, but what if Smollett or any convicted criminal were really wrongfully convicted or exonerated, how would we ever really know?
He never had a credible story as far as I could tell. His original story of mythical MAGA men made no sense from the start. Then the brothers copped to it, and I believe their participation was corroborated. The question then became, why would they do the attack and stage it to look like a hate crime if Smollett hadn't asked them to? How would they even know he would be out at that time, when, according to him, he was making an impromptu late-night Subway run? Neither he nor his lawyers nor apparently the jury could make the evidence fit together in any other plausible way. Do you have a handle on a possible version of the events as we know them where Smollett is innocent? (I ask sincerely.)
Somehow we have to believe that the brothers were willing to hang out near Jussie's apartment on a very, very cold night well after midnight on what would have been an off off chance that he would leave on an errand after having returned from a long trip. OR we would have to believe that the brothers werent' the attackers and admitted to it to get famous and that some random MAGA dudes did happen to be wandering by with, you know, a handy length of rope to fake a lynching and happened to see Jussie and think they could get away with attacking him.
"Do you have a handle on a possible version of the events as we know them where Smollett is innocent? (I ask sincerely.)" --JakeH
No -- well said, perspicuous analysis!
But are more ambiguous verdicts sometimes troubling?
I'm really asking about the general case where we're left asking if the party was convicted wrongfully or exonerated when actually guilty. Is there a lingering, bothersome question in those cases?
A case like Darlie Lynn Peck Routier's, the Texas woman on death row -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie_Routier -- convicted of murdering one son and committing the capital murder of another. There is ambiguity around the interpretation of facts in this case that has gleaned public attention and seems to support the conclusion of possible/actual innocence.
Clearly, she is guilty in the eyes of the court, but what if she were actually innocent?
A sad fact of life. There frequently is a lack of certainty. Criminals are rarely caught in the act or faced with undeniable evidence. Trials and juries are the best we have. Which is one reason why death penalties are a problem and why courts and prosecutors should always be open to the presentation of new evidence. There are plenty of examples of overturned convictions. I would not want to be on a jury in a circumstantial case. But I believe that we need to temper our concerns, and for the most part, a jury is a pretty good tool for finding reasonableness.
Indeed; lots of wrongful convictions in our own back yard! Happens all too frequently. I'm sure some innocent people have even been executed and not in the distant past. (Google Cameron Todd Willingham, for example.)
I personally think judges should take a more active role in overturning convictions that do not meet the very high "moral certainty" "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of factual proof. As it stands, they *could* overturn convictions for this reason, but as a matter of practice, they are very reluctant to, preferring to defer to juries. Part of this is tradition, but part of it may be the fact that criminal court judges are often elected and are more likely to have a prosecution background than a defense background.
Re Broccoli Shy…my adult daughters still enjoy singing a family favorite called “Broccoli Lasagna”, (sung to the tune of Hakuna Matata) about a one-time dinner I made that they all hated.
Just as Jussie Smolett’s nonsense hurt legitimate victims of hate crimes, Kim Foxx using this case as an example of racial injustice hurts the many African American people who have been victimized by an inequitable system. .
Agreed. She also damages the very idea of a reform minded prosecutor, undermines the clarity of what needs to be fixed, and promotes the belief that no progress is being made. I found it particularly insulting that she would mention the cases of 20 missing black women in her criticism of misplaced resources, as if there were some links to the Smollett prosecution.
👍
Austin Berg did a much better job than I with his editorial on Madigan and his labor legislation legacy. (https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-illinois-right-to-work-union-amendment-madigan-20220316-pliz7qn3nbhlhmvvlscbq4p57e-story.html) Added to the Madigan earmarks in the Rebuild Illinois bill discussed by David Greising in a column today, and I think that it should be clear that any 'good' legislation with "Madigan's fingerprints" were just incidental to him running his operation. Which sadly shows every sign of having been inherited by Chris Welch and continuing in operation.
I am frequently frustrated at the length of time required to complete investigations of seemingly uncomplicated events - as with the Stillman case. But in this instance, I also am also suspicious of the timing of the Foxx news conference to combine the Toledo and Alvarez announcements to coincide with the Smollett news stories. Possibly misplaced, but for me, another result of a public official forfeiting the public trust. Along with the absurdity of not charging Roman with child endangerment, there is little reason to trust her judgement and every reason to suspect her motives.
I had to laugh at the Northwestern student government closed meeting position. I can't imagine that they would say the same rules should apply to the Evanston or Chicago governments. I agree that it is a clear attempt to protect themselves and reduce their need for self-censorship. It also displays their fear of the campus community and other campus organizations, not to mention the broader internet world. My guess is that even their 'enlightened' members fear blundering in their comments. I also have to wonder at how they think they will produce non-controversial minutes. In addition to withholding speaker names, will they also sanitize the language to make it entirely inoffensive to any possible audience that deserves protection? A sad state of affairs for the university and it's misguided leadership.
I don't care what names are on Chicago Schools. I think that it would be safest and cheapest to just name them for the neighborhood they are in or the street they are on. I also think that the adults are overthinking the impact of the school's name on the students. I doubt that many of them make any sort of connection of the name to a person or ideals. I also don't see how they would find any person (American or not) that would be an apt model for a diverse and constantly changing student body. I went to Blackhawk Junior High (long gone) which had a picture and sign with some facts which I barely noticed. It was only in my 50's that I read 'The Autobiography of Blackhawk" and learned something about this fascinating and complex man. The sanitized shorthand of him is noble defender of Native American rights, but his much more complex story is mixed, like Daniel Boone shorthand is incomplete. FYI, my elementary school was named by the street and my high school had a township name.
“There are Americans dumb enough to complain about gas prices while donating money to an alleged billionaire for a new private plane, in case you wondered how we haven’t been able to stop the spread of COVID in this country yet. —“
That’s a great diagnosis of why Covid goes in in this country. Eric, when you select non-sequitors like this, I assume you endorse the message.
I’m finding it hard to root for Ohio State over Villanova. Mainly, I think, because I don’t want Michigan to play them.
Though Villanova looks like a better, more balanced team.