High times

I left the Tribune three years ago today. I've never been happier

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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. 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.

Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Happy third buyout-aversary to me and many others!

Three years ago today, June 25, 2021, I voluntarily left the Tribune along with a large group of others who took a buyout offer at around the same time from Alden Global Capital. Then-Daily Herald media columnist Robert Feder posted this list of those departing:

Jonathon Berlin
Joe Biesk
Jemal Brinson
Aly Brumback
Jeff Cercone
Steve Chapman
Elyssa Cherney
Elise De Los Santos
Liam Ford
Georgia Garvey
Dahleen Glanton
Hannah Herrera Greenspan
Lauren Hill
Dan Hinkel
Margaret Holt
Steve Johnson
John Kass
Eric Krol
Hannah Leone
Todd Lighty
Adam Lukach
Ian Mitchell
Hollis Napoli
Tom Palmer
Mary Ellen Podmolik
Melody Potempa
Scott Powers
DeAntae Prince
Stephanie Reynolds
Phil Rosenthal
Shannon Ryan
Bianca Sanchez
Mary Schmich
Chris Sosa
Heidi Stevens
Abel Uribe
Lara Weber
Chad Yoder
Eric Zorn

I’m in touch with only a few of these former colleagues. Some are working in journalism and related fields, others have retired. Not one I’ve spoken to has expressed a wish that they were still at the paper.

In my farewell column to readers that posted on that final day, I wrote that I was feeling sick “from the pain of having to say goodbye under these circumstances to you, to my colleagues and to the opportunity to help lead the civic conversation. But,” I added, “seemingly low moments have fooled me before. High times may lie ahead.”

They did lie ahead. I took a few months off and then started this publication, which, despite its length, takes less time than writing three newspaper columns a week, and is less stressful. I write about what I’m interested in at the length I think it deserves, and my readership seems to be similar in size to my online Tribune readership judging from the page views and the responses from readers.

I feared I would lose my identity once I no longer had a professional title — that I would become a “used-to-be.” And while I’m sure that’s true in many minds, I’ve been able to indulge and enjoy my other identities and interests while still piping up in the civic conversation here and on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast.

True, the Picayune Sentinel is less remunerative than my Tribune job, but I have lots more time now for hobbies, friends and family. The balance feels just right. When people ask how I’m doing, I say that I’ve never been happier or more content, though, of course, the normal concerns and anxieties of a 66-year-old are always buzzing around my brain.

I thought and hoped that a new generation of local newspaper columnists would be promoted or hired to take the staff jobs that so many of us walked away from. That has not transpired, which has actually generated more room for those of us in the independent pundit game.

Two years in prison for Burke seems about right, but…

U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall sentenced former 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke to two years in federal prison at Burke’s sentencing hearing Monday. This followed his conviction last year on charges of racketeering, bribery and attempted extortion. She also levied a $2 million fine.

Of the four main purposes of punishment in our legal system — incapacitation, rehabilitation, deterrence, and retribution — only retribution applies here. Burke is in no position to commit further corrupt acts and is in no particular need of rehabilitation given that he’s 80 and no longer in office or practicing law. And sadly we have seen that our elected grifters and sleazeballs are not deterred when their colleagues are arrested, shamed, tried, convicted and shipped off to stripe city.

The two years is purely punitive. It might not seem like enough given the terms served by other crooked pols and government insiders, but it’s a significant percentage of the years he likely has left. And along with his freedom, Burke has also lost his good name. He will go down in Chicago history — a history he famously knows well — as a particularly prominent dirty pol. All those good deeds that his supporters cited in letters to the judge will be secondary to the narrative of corruption and disgrace.

But. Still. He gets to walk free for three more months before having to report to prison Sept. 24, the odd custom in white-collar criminal cases. That non-violent offenders deserve months to get their affairs in order before surrendering suggests to the lay observer that, oh, the system doesn’t really take their crimes all that seriously and doesn’t want to make their punishments too disruptive.

Burke has had half a year since his conviction and now more than five years since his May, 2019 indictment to begin getting his affairs in order. I’m not a lawyer, but that seems like plenty of time. Why not take him into custody now?

Are you a lawyer? Explain this to me.

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

The Ten Commandments in public school classrooms

Don Nemerov — Yes, Louisiana’s new law mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools is over the top, it but pales in comparison to the damage being done by the Chicago Teachers Union to Chicago Public Schools as the union attempts to get rid of charter and magnet schools.

The Ten Commandments is more a statement of ethics than religion, and I found your statement, "Taken as a whole, the Ten Commandments are explicitly based upon and reflect a particular — and, I might add, not very widely practiced — religious belief," to be an offensive if not borderline bigoted reference to the Jewish faith.

 You should be smart enough to know that treading into religious stuff is fraught with peril, and your comment really didn't add much to your position.

Zorn — The reference to “not very widely practiced” was to the fact that you’ll find very few people who even try to keep all 10 — who don’t covet or curse, and who keep the Sabbath holy. I meant no disrespect to the Jewish faith.

And I find it beyond odd that the decalogue says nothing about slavery or rape, but contains a prohibition on graven imagery. How do we explain these peculiar priorities to schoolchildren?

I reserve the right to tread “into religious stuff,” particularly when so many on the religious right want to tread into secular stuff, telling the rest of us that we should behave as they believe God wants people to behave. Respect for beliefs and lack of beliefs in the supernatural must go both ways.

As far as the CTU goes, the union is right to be wary of using public money to pay tuition to religious schools, and to be skeptical of the long term effects of charter schools on education in general. The issue is in no meaningful way comparable to Louisiana’s brazen effort to breach the wall between church and state.

Mark K. — The Ten Commandments issue is much less about the commandments themselves than it is about the conservative Christian minority marking their territory by asserting control and resisting the pluralism and the changing demographics of our country. It's all about, "You don't tell us what to do, we tell you what to do."

The presidential race

Steve Kass — You wrote, “Gas and grocery prices are down, as are violent crime, unemployment and the rate of inflation. The stock market is soaring, wage growth is up, and yet it is mourning in America for Republicans and tens of millions of voters who would furiously be blaming Democratic President Joe Biden were any of these indicators pointing the other direction.”

But crime and inflation are still major concerns.

Do you honestly believe that things are safer in Chicago right now? That there is nothing to worry about?

Meanwhile, inflation is disproportionately affecting the working class. The social consequence of this is rage; the political consequence is populism.

The food pantry at my church is currently providing groceries to about 200 households every week. (Frozen meat, bread and bakery, fruits and vegetables, milk, dairy, cheese and yogurt, along with non-perishables.) I am serving a largely working class community, and they are struggling. I suspect that you and I, with our homes already purchased, not affected by mortgage interest, and with solid investments, are not affected by inflation in the same way many others are.

Zorn — I’m not arguing things are great — that the cost of living is going down and that our streets are totally safe. Just that they’re getting better. Some prices are actually down — groceries and gas — and real income is up slightly. Across the country, violent crime is down. And we all know that if any of these arrows were pointing in the other direction, right-wingers including a certain rabid, diminutive online commentator (to whom you are not related) would be hopping up and down in even more of a frenzied rage than they now find themselves in, blaming President Joe Biden for everything.

Edward Cook --Does anyone ever stop to think that Trump actually reflects America? Many people don't like Blacks. Many people don't like Mexicans. Many people don't like gays, fat people, immigrants....the list is endless.

Why do pundits think that lecturing people about progress and their stupidity is the way to change minds?

The press missed the opportunity to rid the nation of Trump. All they had to do was simply ignore him after he left office. But they couldn't help themselves. Now Trump will be elected, not because of the 30% that support him, but because of the 30% that hate him and gave him just what he wanted. Endless coverage of his endless lies. Congratulations.

Zorn — You’re right that Trump reflects the bigoted, intolerant views of millions — tens of millions — of people (not that the right has the market cornered on intolerance). I’m not at all optimistic that hard Trump supporters can be debated or shamed out of their position.

This summer and fall are all about raising alarms among the undecideds and the traditional non-voters by underscoring the stakes of this election; to instill in them a sense of great urgency. And paying lots of attention to Trump — what he says, what he really wants to do — is a good way to do that.

You’re not the first to suggest that ignoring him would have made him go away. That’s simply not possible in this media environment, when you have conservative outlets blasting his every utterance to his base and beyond. Not responding to his inanities suggests to some that the left has no response.

Jay G. — Trump is going to pull out of Thursday night’s debate at the very last minute, complaining that the rules (agreed to by his camp) are rigged against him and very unfair.

Zorn — I doubt Trump will pull out because he knows it will make him look weak and afraid to a least some voters, though of course his base will stick by him. Laura Washington’s analysis of the debate in an op-ed in Monday’s Tribune was spot on:

Trump must… grapple with his lack of policy chops. That’s never been a problem for his avid supporters, but that deficiency could take on an outsize importance when many voters will be looking for substance. Details have never been Trump’s strong suit, but he will need to command them on the debate stage. …

For Biden, this debate is critical. If Trump rattles Biden, he may falter. Watch for stammering, verbal slips or brain freezes, a la Mitch McConnell. If Biden does not show up strong, he may not make it past the Democratic convention.

I’ll note only that Biden and only Biden decides whether he stays in the race if he has an excruciating debate. He has won the delegates needed to win the nomination (and indeed will be the nominee before the convention because the Democrats had to move up their formal nominating process to meet certain ballot requirements).

The No-No Sox

Steven K. — Regarding your ongoing coverage of the terrible season the White Sox are having and your open glee that they might set baseball’s record for futility in the post-1900 era, I can’t get onboard with the idea of wanting to see a team that you love fail miserably. What if it was your own kid out there playing? Would you want to see him go out on the field and get humiliated game in and game out just so you could enjoy the novelty of seeing him achieve a new nadir in futility?

I’m a lifelong Sox fan, and as painful as it is to watch them this year, I’m still glad on those exceedingly rare occasions when play well and win.

Zorn — According to the results of my click poll, true Sox fans, by a 3-1 margin, are not enjoying the team’s flirtation with historical ineptitude. I admit to not being a true Sox fan — I’m a recent convert and not a terribly ardent one.

The Oak Park library mess

Jake H. — Thank you for your attention to the craziness in Oak Park, my neck of the woods, the official nuclear free zone, where they're so progressive they even exit the expressway on the left. The library board's firing of the director -- an overqualified Black woman who, by all accounts, was highly effective in the post -- at the hands of some online jackasses, because ... uh ... well, it’s still not clear, was an outrageous travesty.

Kudos to you for asking about and wondering whether there's another side to it. “Blocked and Reported” podcast co-host Katie Herzog got to the bottom of it in a way Dan Haley -- president, publisher and co-founder of the Wednesday Journal and keeper of the Oak Park progressive flame -- was apparently unwilling to do or even comment on in response to your request.

Zorn — Yeah, I gotta say newspaper execs in general have been a huge disappointment to me when I’ve sought comment on various issues. Haley, whom I’ve always admired, ignored my request for comment on Herzog’s criticism of his paper’s coverage of the library controversy. Tribune editor Mitch Pugh and publisher Par Ridder regularly ignore my emails on other topics, though I will say that Tribune editorial page editor Chris Jones and Sun-Times executive editor Jennifer Kho tend to be responsive.

Another annoyed Tribune subscriber

Evelyn Mytyk — I recently received a notification that my credit card was charged for my Chicago Tribune subscription (print and online). I contacted Trib customer service via their online portal to ask why I didn’t receive the usual post card informing me about the charges in the new subscription period along with the ritual warning about monthly "premium issues" that you may not want but that can in effect add $120 a year to your bill.

I got the nicest email back that did not answer my questions but provided me with the following surprise news:

"Your subscriptions will be temporarily charged a "Supply Chain Surcharge" based on your delivery schedule at the rate of $0.15 per delivery day. Your subscription fees will be automatically debited each week for the surcharge and your subscription term will be shortened as a result. The surcharge is temporary and will be evaluated every quarter …"

Of course I called and was informed that the $0.15 per day is to cover ink and printing costs. Apparently, the higher subscription rate for print home delivery (as opposed to purely online access) doesn't cover printing costs. What?

When I cancelled my subscription, I informed the customer service clerk that it was solely due to the billing practices which basically suck.

Zorn — Yeah, this “temporary” supply-chain surcharge has been levied since early 2023. It now seems to be $0.18 a day, or $66 a year for seven-days-a-week service. Yes, their opaque, sneaky billing practices suck. They are contributing to subscriber defections, if my email is to be believed, and I wish for the sake of my former colleagues still doing good work at the paper that the circulation/billing department wasn’t so scammy.

I continue to urge people not to cancel, but to continue supporting the Tribune newsroom while also raising hell with management about how subscriptions are handled.

Stick with ‘Hacks’

Steve T. — Regarding “The worst part of getting older,” that snippet of dialogue from the HBO/Max series “Hacks” you posted last week: I didn’t care for the show after watching a few episodes, but my wife wanted to keep watching. I found the second season to be much better — the characters lost the initial one-dimensionality needed to establish the premise. The third season was absolutely amazing, the best show on TV (along with “Ripley”). Watching the characters confront their root unhappiness through each other is joyous and moving.

Zorn — It’s fabulous yes. Didn’t take my wife and me any time to get into it, but we did have that problem with “Reservation Dogs” on Hulu. It didn’t grab us. But so many people urged us on that we eventually restarted it and are now tedious, annoying evangelists for it.

In comments I invite other suggestions for “Just give it a chance …” shows that may require a few episodes to hook you.

Helpful advice to a persistent troll, ignored

wiederkehrsemper@proton.me — The comparison between the non-recognition of same-sex "marriage" and the anti-miscegenation laws is false —

Zorn — I actually didn’t read even this far into this e-mail from an extremely dedicated homophobe who, over the years, has adopted scores if not hundreds of fake email addresses in order to prevent me from blocking his (I assume) anti-gay, anti-trans rants. I recognize them either by their subject line or the first few words of the preview. I nearly always ignore them, but last week I wrote this back:

You are of course more than welcome to keep generating fake email addresses and sending me your nasty screeds, but you should know that I never, ever read them. The preview panel tells me it's you again, and so I hit delete. You ought to take up masturbating as a different self-pleasuring activity. Just some friendly advice.

He/she instantly attempted to respond, this time using the email address
”sizzlingsmoke@proton.me,” but I didn’t read the message. The header indicated that my suggestion would be ignored.

Ya gotta see these tweets!

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

Vote for your favorite. I’ll share the winner in Thursday’s main edition.

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media. And I will continue to call the platform Twitter if only to spite Elon Musk:

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll!

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