To read this issue in your browser, click on the headline above.
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.
Notes and comments from readers —lightly edited —- along with my responses
Some of these messages are in reference to items in last week’s issues of the Picayune Sentinel.
Marc M. — The Foley Foundation estimates that there are at least 67 wrongfully detained Americans in 20 countries. So, other than politics and media interest, what makes the imprisonment of WNBA superstar Brittney Griner special? What pust Griner and Paul Whelan ahead of Marc Fogel? If it is OK to swap a criminal for someone, then why not some other favor or form of payment? If we swap a legitimate criminal for someone “wrongfully detained,” are we agreeing that they were appropriately imprisoned? None of this is as obvious to me as the media seem to think it is.
Thanks for that link to the Foley Foundation and your questions are excellent ones. Asymmetrical prisoner swaps are tantamount to negotiating with terrorists, which is widely considered to be a terrible idea.
Margaret B. — Watching the news on TV hurts my heart. It’s so much more violent and graphic than it used to be. There seems to be video of every tragedy, complete with screaming, etc. So, while I want to be an informed citizen, I find these videos upsetting — and yes, I watch even when they say, "this may be upsetting." I thought I was alone in this but when I tell people, they either say the news upsets them too, or they have already stopped watching. I’d prefer a "gentler" half hour newscast, in which they tell you the stories, and say, "We have video. If you want to see it, please go to our website."
The complaint about the “if it bleeds it leads” philosophy in TV news goes back many decades. What’s new is the ubiquity of video cameras — cell phones, doorbell video monitors, dash & body cams, light-pole cameras and so on — and the consequent availability of much more video of upsetting incidents.
That said, broadcast outlets do continue to show restraint. Most TV stations in Chicago refrained from showing Officer Jason Van Dyke pumping 16 bullets into Laquan McDonald, for instance. They tended to stop the video just as Van Dyke was preparing to fire the first shot, even though the number of shots the frenzied Van Dyke fired made his actions particularly gratuitous and inexcusable, and the video of the entire attack was therefore relevant.
Yet the emergence of streaming platforms makes the idea of edited, “gentler” versions of newscasts plausible. It also might be that a station or network that was made it a point to be more diligent about warning sensitive viewers to avert their eyes would be rewarded with higher ratings.
Rick W. — The first time I heard the Sara Tucholsky story was a John McCutcheon song about it that made me cry.
McCutcheon’s ballad tells how Tucholsky, a walk-on member of the Western Oregon University softball team, hit the first home run of her career in her very last game. It was a three-run shot in the second inning of a 2008 game against Central Washington University. But she missed first base as she rounded it, then, in panic, planted her leg hard to return to touch the bag. In doing so, her knee gave out and she crumpled to the ground in agony.
Rules in place at the time forbade Tucholsky’s teammates from assisting her in any way. McCutcheon’s lyrics tell of how Central Washington players picked her up and carried her around the bases, allowing her to touch them all in act of sportsmanship for the ages (video).
The penultimate lines of the song are wonderful:
Sometimes help comes where you least expect it And carries you all the way home
McCutcheon has a vast catalog of traditional, Americana and roots music, but has a special interest in baseball as you can see in this video archive.
Mark R. —Have you ever weighed in on the idea of the U.S. Postal Service eliminating Saturday deliveries to save money? Six-day-a-week delivery is archaic but there seems to be no political will to change it. If I were in charge I'd set a date five years from now to reduce it to three or four days which would save money.
In 2010 I wrote this:
The postmaster general of the United States floated the idea of eliminating the delivery of mail on Saturdays to help boost our nation's sagging postal bottom line.
In 1957.
Tribune news archives show the idea came around again in 1962, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1987, 1992 (when Postmaster General "Carvin'" Marvin Runyon suggested going to four-day-a-week home delivery), 2001 and 2009. And no doubt there were other years when, out of sheer weariness, we didn't bother to note the re-emergence in Washington of this perpetual nonstarter. …
Yet a Gallup Poll taken in June 2009 showed 66 percent support for the elimination of Saturday delivery. …
William Burrus, president of the American Postal Workers Union, has been thunderous in opposition: "Six-day delivery is deeply ingrained in the American culture," he wrote. "If enacted, history will record this act as the first step in the dismantling of the United States mail system."
Oh, stop, wait a minute. The mail system survived the transition to six-day from seven-day delivery in 1912 and the elimination of twice-a-day residential delivery in 1950. It will survive, it can only survive, if it adapts to changing realities.
If we can dump Saturday delivery once and for all, history will record this act as the first step toward solvency for the United States mail system in the 21st century.
Twelve years later and we’re no closer to this reform. But see what I did there with “Stop, wait a minute”?
Mark M. — Thanks to your new podcast columnist Johanna Zorn for the recommendation of “Mother Country Radicals.” Many of these retrospectives dull the sharp edges of the times or apply a hazy veil of nostalgia. But host Zayd Dohrn not only doesn't shy from discussion the violent radicalism and casual misogyny of the Weathermen and similar groups, but he also contrasts them to the Vietnam War and civil rights struggle. He declares that he's more interested in the complexities of human behavior than idealism, and that comes through. But that must have been difficult, given that he's largely talking about his own parents. It also offers another reminder of how these conflicts still echo today.
Response was really good to Johanna’s debut column, which augurs a labor dispute in my future.
Steve R. — I’m not a Trump fan and I’m pro-choice. One man’s Fuckery (with a capital F even) is another man’s using the rules to his advantage. Your side attempts to do it all the time. But you know, I’m really tired of such uncivil discourse from a guy who apparently never belonged at a family newspaper. I’m done. I know you won’t miss me, but once the echo reaches a certain level in your little chamber, you might miss hearing reasoned points of view that are different from yours. Pro-rated refund please. Bye now.
Well, you never know what’s going to set people off! This comment was part of an exchange in a thread that began when Steve agreed that it was too soon (last Thursday) to know whether the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago was justified, but he hoped that those who conclude that it was justified aren’t the same ones who yell about judges being illegitimate. He then clarified that he was talking about protests over the rulings of any court “run by a Trump appointed judge,” not just rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.
I replied that “the Supreme Court is a unique and disgraceful example of Republican Fuckery,” and I have no idea why voice-to-text capitalized “fuckery.” It’s clearly a common noun!
And, since we’re all adults here — the Picayune Sentinel has never aspired to being a “family friendly” publication — I contend that "fuckery" is le mot juste to describe how Mitch McConnell trashed custom and violated the spirit of the Constitution to deny President Barack Obama a Supreme Court appointment in 2016 on the grounds that an election was 9 months away, and then rushed through Trump's appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Court just weeks before the 2020 election. This accounts for a highly consequential partisan tilt to the high court that results in unpopular but binding rulings. Perhaps Steve would have preferred Antonin Scalia’s term "jiggery pokery," I don’t know.
But let’s be clear. This comment area and the Zmail feature are in no way intended to be a "little chamber." I haven't deleted one of Steve R’s comments and I’ve been very sparing with that option. I enjoy thoughtful dissent and I think readers enjoy it too. Yes, I do push back — particularly, here, on the "both sides"-ism that posits that Republicans and Democrats have equal respect/disrespect for small-d democratic ideals and, now, the rule of law. And those who don’t collapse in indignation over the use of perfectly apt profanity — no directed at them or used merely to call names — are perfectly able to push back.
David L. weighed in on the thread to support Steve R.:
I'm an overseas military veteran who no one has ever accused of being prudish, but I can do without vulgarity. I just feel that course language materially contributes to the onslaught of incivility in our political discourse. We can advocate our views with great passion without coarse language for emphasis. I believe the use of it detracts from the credibility of the person using it. There are a million other names you can use to insult and disparage McConnell and the many others on the right side of the political spectrum that you dislike without using words that you would likely not use in front of your mother or wife.
I would gladly use such words around the womenfolk in order to add emphasis and I disagree that the profanity necessarily diminishes credibility or weakens an argument. For instance, I thought Beto O’Rourke’s response to someone laughing about the Uvalde school massacre — “It may be funny to you, motherfucker, but it is not funny to me,” was spot on and far stronger and more energizing than “It may be funny to you, bad person, but it is not funny to me.”
Readers are free to feel otherwise — they are even free to seek out the family friendly discourse on Fox News, which eschews cuss words but every day does far more damage to civility in public discourse than a thousand salty newsletters.
When he was editor of “The National Review,” William F. Buckley reportedly responded to an indignant reader demanding that Buckley cancel his subscription with, “Cancel your own damn subscription.!” I was prepared to offer a similar response to Steve R., though I would vastly prefer that he stick around and continue to raise contrary points. But then I realized that I personally have to handle pro-rated refunds so I will go ahead and process that this week with my thanks for his contributions.
But as I do so, I want to emphasize again that I truly do value differing opinions and don’t want the comment threads to become an echo chamber any more than I want it to become a forum for relentless trolls (which Steve R. is/was not!).
David A. — Thanks for the explanation, albeit both patronizing and unnecessary, of the meaning of “Occam’s razor.” I write to disagree about its application to the recent FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. Were today’s FBI and DOJ trustworthy when it comes to all things Trump your conclusion might be correct, but sadly they are not.
For multiple years Democrats in general and the losing Clinton campaign in particular, aided and abetted by the outgoing Obama administration, launched a dishonest “Russian collusion” campaign designed to undermine the Trump presidency from its outset, during which the heads of the FBI and the CIA not only were active participants but also lied repeatedly to Congress and the American people, then later dissembled under oath when the plot had unraveled.
Combined with President Obama’s misuse of the IRS under Lois Lerner, Eric Holder’s being held in contempt of Congress with absolutely zero legal or financial implications, and the apparent complete lack of interest of both the media and executive branch agencies in the business and financial involvement of the current occupant of the White House in his son Hunter’s seedy (and serendipitously profitable affairs), and in the wake of two pathetically unsuccessful impeachments of the former President, Occam’s razor instead suggests that this latest raid is simply another attempt to tarnish the image of Donald Trump.
If, indeed, the warrant authorizing the search sought specific information (whether or not a “smoking gun”), it hardly seems likely that it would have taken a team of 20 to 30 agents a full day to search the premises to find that.
Again, Occam’s razor would tend to suggest that this was, indeed, a cynical fishing expedition in hopes of finding something — anything — to prevent a two-term President Trump from finishing the work he began under crippling circumstances in January 2017, when in a little-publicized move then-President Barack Obama signed an executive order just seventeen days before he left the White House expanding the number of outgoing Executive Branch officials who could authorize the “unmasking” of US nationals involved in NSA-monitored communications with foreign nationals.
That cynical effort failed, at great expense to the country, and I suspect that, in the end, this will too, Occam’s razor or no.
Maybe I don’t run in the same smarty-pants circles as you do, but here in my world the philosophical rule of thumb “Occam’s razor” is not one of those terms that everyone understands. I strive for clarity, and the price of that is occasionally insulting the intelligence of my most highly intelligent readers. Apologies tendered.
Collusion? Special counsel Robert Muller reported that his “investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the (Trump) campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
Mueller spent almost 200 pages describing “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.” He found that “a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.” He also found that “a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations” against the Clinton campaign… Mueller found at least four acts by Trump in which all elements of the obstruction statute were satisfied – attempting to fire Mueller, directing White House counsel Don McGahn to lie and create a false document about efforts to fire Mueller, attempting to limit the investigation to future elections and attempting to prevent Manafort from cooperating with the government. As Mueller stated, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”(Time.com)
Was anyone indicted for lying to Congress in this matter, even when the Republicans were in charge for the first two years of Trump’s term?
In 2017, when your Dear Leader was in power, the U.S. Treasury Dept. released a report on how the IRS targeted political groups that were abusing their tax exempt status and “found that the IRS was also inappropriately targeting progressive-leaning groups. While the investigation does not specify the political affiliations of the groups, names that were flagged included the words Progressive, Occupy, Green Energy, and Acorn — the acronym for the now defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.” (NY Times)
Again with the Hunter Biden grousing? Please. He clearly traded on his family name to get a sweet gig. But there’s no evidence that he ever influenced any official action — a possibility that the Trump DOJ could have investigated along with a Republican Congress in 2017 and 2018 but, gosh, they didn’t, did they? Are you as concerned about the Chinese granting Ivanka all those patents or the Saudis investing $2 billion with Jared Kushner?
Conspiracy kooks have this febrile fantasy about a “deep state” in which the FBI — under a Trump appointee — conspired with a federal magistrate to get a bogus warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, so that no matter what they have found the kooks will ululate about fake news, planted documents and so on.
It appears that Trump had classified documents in Mar-a-Lago and his lawyers lied that he didn’t. His excuses and explanations keep changing.. This was a far more egregious offense than what Republicans accused Hillary Clinton of back when you were howling “lock her up!!!”
And by the way, what “work” did Donald Trump accomplish during his lazy four years in the White House? An infrastructure deal? A health plan to replace Obamacare? A huge wall along the Mexican border? Well, he did get through tax cuts for the rich, he tragically downplayed the coronavirus and, with the help of Mitch McConnell and the Federalist Society installed three new justices on the U.S.Supreme Court who appear dramatically indifferent to both precedent and public opinion.
My serious question for you and your fellow Trumpalos is, why do you want him back? He’s not a smart or moral man, nor was he a particularly effective president. Any mainstream conservative hopeful from 2016 — Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz or even Jeb! — would almost certainly have done more to realize true conservative goals than the feckless oaf who won your hearts. He would have given you the conservative justices and delivered the tax cuts but might also have been a stronger leader during COVID, enacted a more effective immigration policy and actually come up with the replacement for Obamacare, something that has animated your fantasies for a dozen years now.
Why Trump?
Mike C. — It's not John Kass' fault that some idiots out there decided to interpret his comments on financier George Soros to be anti-Semitic. If he were to have said "sorry, I didn't know," as you suggest he should have, he’d have been admitting to "blowing a dog-whistle" when he didn't. Soros' religion has absolutely nothing to do with what Kass was reporting. That other people decided to insert it is neither Kass' fault or problem.
I invite readers again to review the bidding at “The truth about John Kass’ dispute with the Tribune and the Tribune Guild.” Repeated invocations of Soros are widely seen as anti-Semitic dog whistles, and you can argue all you want that they shouldn’t be considered that, but it’s what many people hear. There are many examples of usages known to give offense even when the writer/speaker had no intention of giving offense.
One example from my own career is when I referred to someone in writing as "transgendered." I immediately came under fire from LGBTQ activist types who said this usage was offensive, that the proper term is "transgender." By way of analogy they pointed out that we don’t' refer to Black people as "Blackened." Well, I certainly meant nothing by my usage and my admission of ignorance on this point along with my apology was sufficient to blunt further criticism. It wasn’t that hard.
I’m among those who believe that Kass didn't know this about the obsession with Soros and didn't intend anything anti-Semitic when he wrote about it.
That he chose instead to double down on it much as you are doing here was certainly his right, but his continual bleating about his own victimhood when there were no consequences for what he wrote is needlessly destructive and animated by his grudge against just four staff journalists still working at the paper — the other five members of the union’s executive committee who signed that letter have left the company.
And people tell me to let it go!
Love, fate and my 1997 wedding speech
We were visiting with our friends Peter and Pam at their home on Cape Cod last month when I idly asked Pam how she’d ended up there. Well, she reminded me, the answer to that question had been a central theme of a speech at their wedding ceremony on their back porch 25 years ago, a speech I had written and delivered!
They dug it out of their archives and here is what I’d said:
The wedding ring, like the love it represents, is solid, strong, endless and straightforward. In its shape is completion, the joining of parts into a whole.
This is why brides and grooms traditionally exchange rings instead of, say, souvenir pins or bicycle clips.
The matching symbols of eternity impermanence tell the world and remind the husband and wife at every glance that their bond, like the bands themselves, are to be forever unbroken.
The rings that Peter and Pam exchange today tell them — and us — something else as well.
The story of these rings starts with the story of two couples long ago, couples who never met one another and who are no longer with us — Peter’s maternal grandparents and Pam's maternal grandparents.
Both couples loved Cape Cod, this land, and both owned silver sets from which these wedding bands were forged.
It was their love of this part of the country that ultimately brought these two here together today.
Pam came to Falmouth to live with her grandmother as she worked her way through graduate school. Peter grew up in the midwest but was drawn back here to live and work by memories of boyhood summers at his grandparents’ cottage on a high bluff near Nauset Light
It took years, but somehow these two ended up living next door to each other and ended up slowly, delightfully discovering each other.
What were the odds of that? What are we to make of the fact that these and literally thousands of other influences, choices and coincidences meshed and clicked and spun and brought these two and those of us who love them together today, this beautiful day in this beautiful yard for this auspicious occasion?
Anywhere along the line, any number of small things could have gone a little differently – a stamp could have fallen off a job application, a real estate transaction could have gone wrong, a traffic jam could have delayed a meeting for Pam, for Peter, for the parents, for the grandparents who owned the silver spoons from which these rings were made, or, indeed, for their parents and their parents parents, back through the generations.
One little change, and we might be standing here in our nice clothes for no reason.
It's a miracle. It's a billion-to-one shot. And occurrences that may have seemed to them at the time like good news or bad news, joy or heartbreak, now seem to have been all of a piece, all necessary for leading up to this magnificent union that we celebrate today.
These rings, and their origin, remind us of the mystery behind it all. Was it fate that brought them together? Divine guidance? Plain old luck?
Whatever it was and whatever it is, we marvel at it and are sustained in our hopes to the way it is played out for Peter and Pam.
These rings, these old pieces of silver made new again, are a grateful salute to all of that which brought them together, and a reminder of a gratitude they owe those who have gone on before.
These rings are a proclamation that, at the heart of the mystery of love and circumstance is not darkness, but the brightest light.
They are still happily married and dine out most nights in the summer on the porch on which they were married. They refer to the above as “the bicycle clips speech.”
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.
There’s still time to vote in the conventional Tweet of the Week poll!
Thank you for supporting the Picayune Sentinel. To help this publication grow, please consider spreading the word to friends, family, associates, neighbors and agreeable strangers.
.
The bicycle clips speech is lovely. I'm glad it was still in the archives.
Eric: I had to vote for the avocado tweet because that just happened to me. But I hope the Pope and his cone of shame wins.