"News: Mayor Lori Lightfoot claims to be humble in a new commercial."
Since Rahm is half a world away, maybe she could borrow some of his old sweaters. They're probably not very worn since they were only used for his commercials.
1. According to the video “gyro” is pronounced as “yer-ro” because it spins around like a “ji-ro”. So yer-ro like a ji-ro. That settles that. 2. “federally protected nuisance” - we have worse things in this category than geese. 3. Self check out with the long conveyor belt would be helpful with bigger orders than the spinning bag trolley. Stores can also increase the prices of your food to get you your blue haired cat lady… that’s even if they could get that person to apply and not be short handed.
Never ever use self-checkout. It's someone's job, forpetesake. Unforgettable is lovely and made me cry-went next to Will and Grace singing it. Giving so much attention to vandalism seems to result in more, and perhaps worse, vandalism. I'm a believer in - You get what you pay attention to.
It's someone's job, yes, but I'm not sure that's a sustainable way of looking at it. I mean, so was milk man. And what about the poor people who design, build, market, and sell self-checkout machines? Why do want to rob them all of their livelihoods?!
About that site shut down due to noose thing. A guy who loves to say that he's "to the right of Atilla the Hun" told me that he heard on a radio show that he listens to that the site closed down due to lack of funding. Whether a shut down over a stupid noose or disinformation from right-wing radio, there's something very wrong in this country, we have lost perspective and the right isn't marginalized enough.
I do self-checkout when it’s clearly faster. But these aren’t being installed for speed - it’s cheaper. The speediest solution now is many experienced human clerks. But they’re more expensive than self-checkout, long-term. If Meijer or Costco wanted the fastest checkout, they would have a huge number of clerks. Meijer used to do this. But it’s not compatible with charging the lowest prices.
Sunset Foods has a huge number of clerks and there managers will step in when necessary. But people use the self check out lines for a handful of items because it IS faster. Even faster their wonderful clerks if you don’t have much.
Yes, it is cheaper, but also, the self-checkout increases the total number of lanes. The Jewel that I go to eliminated two staffed lanes to make room for 11 self-checkout positions. So even at the busiest times when the line for these is longest, it is always faster. I also don't have to wait behind people having long conversations with the tellers about coupons, checks, cash back, prices, etc etc.
I use self checkout when I have a few items all bearing UPC codes (I'm not going to look up the code for green onions), but the process sure has room for improvement. I don't think I've ever self-checked-out (self-check-outed) without generating some complaint from the system, usually invalid.
I couldn’t agree more about the media reaction to the noose story (although I disagree with your view that a white supremacist is the most likely culprit; far more likely a rise eliciting prank or a Smollettesque hoax would be my hunch). Watching and reading about the hysterical reactions from public officials, the bombast, the $100,000 reward, the shutting down of construction, the extended sensitivity training, etc all really made me cringe, and not for the least of the reasons being the image of the culprit, balled up on the floor at home and trying to fend off a hernia from the hysterical laughter. Besides, when it comes to the question of whether or not to report a story like this, the answer is already baked into our collective conscious by way of adage: no noose is good noose.
You did not understand my comment about the gyro tweet. My issue wasn’t the pronunciation/play on words. I only pronounce it Yer-oh and totally understood the play on word with hero. By grip was there was nothing that made sense about saying that pronouncing something correctly made one a hero. I mean why is that “ heroic” even in a very silly sense of that word. As I said I think the tweet would have been much better if it said something along the lines that not correcting someone’s mispronunciation makes you the “ real gyro”. Cuz when people say “jy-roh” it takes all my self control not to snap “ for goodness sakes it’s Yer-Oh!”
Dan Proft calling Russell Lissau a “pederast” is not much different than other Republicans and their supporters calling LGBTQ+ people “groomers,” which Republicans and their supporters do all the time. Republicans and their supporters also identify as “groomers” people who think children should be taught that there are people who are gay or transgender. So teaching children that a classmate of theirs, who everyone thought was a boy, is really a girl becomes, in the new Republican lexicon, “grooming” school children, or sexualizing them. A “groomer” is someone who builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Republicans and their right wing supporters casually hurl this epithet at LGBTQ+ people and their supporters, a little like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious antisemitic tract, claimed that Jews kidnapped and slaughtered Christian children and drained their blood to mix in the dough for matzos consumed on Jewish holidays. If you call someone a “groomer,” a person who wants to sexualize and abuse children, it becomes easy to exclude them from society by law or violence. I think Lissau was quite correct in calling the people who want to restrict sex ed, restrict LGBTQ+ rights, or ban books extremists.
I can not wait for the day it’s all like Amazon Fresh stores. Checking out is annoying ( and I like self check out for EXACTLY the reason that Rick Reilly claims he doesn’t….don’t want to chat with anyone!)
I would also say that my experience with retail checkout workers is not good. My sense is that most range from disinterested to surly and that they are generally unskilled. Smiling, cordial, skilled, and helpful is not how I would describe most.
Agreed. I generally prefer self check out for the reason you state, but I’ll gladly use a cashier lane instead if the cashier is one that I’m familiar with and know to be pleasant. It’s the same reason that I’m more inclined to go to Chick-Fil-A if I’m going to get fast food; the food isn’t that much better than the other places, but their workers are, for the most part, overwhelmingly courteous and polite, a glaring anomaly in the fast food industry.
"Fox News cast a skeptical eye on the story, amplifying speculation in conservative circles that it was a Jussie Smollett-like hoax. Which, in fairness, it could be. Or it could be the work of a prankster just hoping to get a rise out of people. Or, most likely, it could be a white supremacist trying to sow fear and discord, a person who is no doubt thrilled beyond words by all the coverage." -- Zorn
I agree that the media has the responsibility to cover this story competently and fairly, and though mentioning the Jussie Smollett story, I think speculating about a single motive simplifies the case and leaves out (perhaps deliberately as an argument often will) other possibilities: For all we know the noose halting construction at the Obama Presidential Center was displayed by a few hometown rebellious teens as a joke-in-bad-taste. Who knows at this point? On the other hand, as is always a possibility, Eric may be right in his conjectures, and this debacle is a simple, exclusive case of racism calling for responsible media coverage.
I listened to Eric on Joan Esposito’s show today and he said that these stories should be relegated to page 7 or 8 with little fanfare in the papers. Call me naive or cavalier in the face of a real threat, but I honestly don’t think that a story like this should be reported at all. A noose was found at a construction site. So what? Was it wrapped around a neck? The pontifications that this elicited from Pritzker and other officials were ridiculous. Look at it this way: the worst case scenario here is that some virulent racist left it there as an expression of his hateful views. Even if that’s the case, the fact that he felt the need to do it so anonymously and passive aggressively shows how toxic and indefensible he knows these views to be, not how prevalent they are. This is, to paraphrase Royko in reference to another non-existent public menace, like a timid radical somewhere cooking an American flag in a microwave.
"News: Mayor Lori Lightfoot claims to be humble in a new commercial."
Since Rahm is half a world away, maybe she could borrow some of his old sweaters. They're probably not very worn since they were only used for his commercials.
Hi Eric - regarding the self check out survey, there should be a 3rd option - "I don't care, one way or the other".
Love your column,
William Kimball
Good issue. Is it just me or are none ot the 'tweets" this week funny, original, or ... anything much?
1. According to the video “gyro” is pronounced as “yer-ro” because it spins around like a “ji-ro”. So yer-ro like a ji-ro. That settles that. 2. “federally protected nuisance” - we have worse things in this category than geese. 3. Self check out with the long conveyor belt would be helpful with bigger orders than the spinning bag trolley. Stores can also increase the prices of your food to get you your blue haired cat lady… that’s even if they could get that person to apply and not be short handed.
Never ever use self-checkout. It's someone's job, forpetesake. Unforgettable is lovely and made me cry-went next to Will and Grace singing it. Giving so much attention to vandalism seems to result in more, and perhaps worse, vandalism. I'm a believer in - You get what you pay attention to.
It's someone's job, yes, but I'm not sure that's a sustainable way of looking at it. I mean, so was milk man. And what about the poor people who design, build, market, and sell self-checkout machines? Why do want to rob them all of their livelihoods?!
Elevator operators
And could media ease off coverage of trump? Every nasty, false and regurgitated comment of his does not need the play it is given.
Bravo! Oft repeated, but rarely recognized.
He is the presumptive nominee for one of the two major political parties. He leads in every single republican primary poll.
To "ease off coverage" of this candidate would be journalistic malfeasance.
I got a kick out of the NY Post front page: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-york-post-buries-trump-2024-launch-florida-man-makes-announcement/ar-AA14bNyZ
I would love a lot fewer pictures and video clips.
About that site shut down due to noose thing. A guy who loves to say that he's "to the right of Atilla the Hun" told me that he heard on a radio show that he listens to that the site closed down due to lack of funding. Whether a shut down over a stupid noose or disinformation from right-wing radio, there's something very wrong in this country, we have lost perspective and the right isn't marginalized enough.
I do self-checkout when it’s clearly faster. But these aren’t being installed for speed - it’s cheaper. The speediest solution now is many experienced human clerks. But they’re more expensive than self-checkout, long-term. If Meijer or Costco wanted the fastest checkout, they would have a huge number of clerks. Meijer used to do this. But it’s not compatible with charging the lowest prices.
Sunset Foods has a huge number of clerks and there managers will step in when necessary. But people use the self check out lines for a handful of items because it IS faster. Even faster their wonderful clerks if you don’t have much.
Yes, it is cheaper, but also, the self-checkout increases the total number of lanes. The Jewel that I go to eliminated two staffed lanes to make room for 11 self-checkout positions. So even at the busiest times when the line for these is longest, it is always faster. I also don't have to wait behind people having long conversations with the tellers about coupons, checks, cash back, prices, etc etc.
I use self checkout when I have a few items all bearing UPC codes (I'm not going to look up the code for green onions), but the process sure has room for improvement. I don't think I've ever self-checked-out (self-check-outed) without generating some complaint from the system, usually invalid.
I just saved democracy and voted (twice) in the tweet poll. And ... 9th and 10th place. Just like with my political votes.
I couldn’t agree more about the media reaction to the noose story (although I disagree with your view that a white supremacist is the most likely culprit; far more likely a rise eliciting prank or a Smollettesque hoax would be my hunch). Watching and reading about the hysterical reactions from public officials, the bombast, the $100,000 reward, the shutting down of construction, the extended sensitivity training, etc all really made me cringe, and not for the least of the reasons being the image of the culprit, balled up on the floor at home and trying to fend off a hernia from the hysterical laughter. Besides, when it comes to the question of whether or not to report a story like this, the answer is already baked into our collective conscious by way of adage: no noose is good noose.
Re: Tune of the Week
I've loved Nat King Cole since I was a child.
However, a sad fact is that he was given a network variety show, which was great but soon canceled.
Why?
Because no company had the guts to sponsor the show because he's . . .
you know. . .
You did not understand my comment about the gyro tweet. My issue wasn’t the pronunciation/play on words. I only pronounce it Yer-oh and totally understood the play on word with hero. By grip was there was nothing that made sense about saying that pronouncing something correctly made one a hero. I mean why is that “ heroic” even in a very silly sense of that word. As I said I think the tweet would have been much better if it said something along the lines that not correcting someone’s mispronunciation makes you the “ real gyro”. Cuz when people say “jy-roh” it takes all my self control not to snap “ for goodness sakes it’s Yer-Oh!”
Dan Proft calling Russell Lissau a “pederast” is not much different than other Republicans and their supporters calling LGBTQ+ people “groomers,” which Republicans and their supporters do all the time. Republicans and their supporters also identify as “groomers” people who think children should be taught that there are people who are gay or transgender. So teaching children that a classmate of theirs, who everyone thought was a boy, is really a girl becomes, in the new Republican lexicon, “grooming” school children, or sexualizing them. A “groomer” is someone who builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Republicans and their right wing supporters casually hurl this epithet at LGBTQ+ people and their supporters, a little like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious antisemitic tract, claimed that Jews kidnapped and slaughtered Christian children and drained their blood to mix in the dough for matzos consumed on Jewish holidays. If you call someone a “groomer,” a person who wants to sexualize and abuse children, it becomes easy to exclude them from society by law or violence. I think Lissau was quite correct in calling the people who want to restrict sex ed, restrict LGBTQ+ rights, or ban books extremists.
I can not wait for the day it’s all like Amazon Fresh stores. Checking out is annoying ( and I like self check out for EXACTLY the reason that Rick Reilly claims he doesn’t….don’t want to chat with anyone!)
I would also say that my experience with retail checkout workers is not good. My sense is that most range from disinterested to surly and that they are generally unskilled. Smiling, cordial, skilled, and helpful is not how I would describe most.
Agreed. I generally prefer self check out for the reason you state, but I’ll gladly use a cashier lane instead if the cashier is one that I’m familiar with and know to be pleasant. It’s the same reason that I’m more inclined to go to Chick-Fil-A if I’m going to get fast food; the food isn’t that much better than the other places, but their workers are, for the most part, overwhelmingly courteous and polite, a glaring anomaly in the fast food industry.
your Pat Quinn bingo card was fantastic-thanks!
"Fox News cast a skeptical eye on the story, amplifying speculation in conservative circles that it was a Jussie Smollett-like hoax. Which, in fairness, it could be. Or it could be the work of a prankster just hoping to get a rise out of people. Or, most likely, it could be a white supremacist trying to sow fear and discord, a person who is no doubt thrilled beyond words by all the coverage." -- Zorn
I agree that the media has the responsibility to cover this story competently and fairly, and though mentioning the Jussie Smollett story, I think speculating about a single motive simplifies the case and leaves out (perhaps deliberately as an argument often will) other possibilities: For all we know the noose halting construction at the Obama Presidential Center was displayed by a few hometown rebellious teens as a joke-in-bad-taste. Who knows at this point? On the other hand, as is always a possibility, Eric may be right in his conjectures, and this debacle is a simple, exclusive case of racism calling for responsible media coverage.
I listened to Eric on Joan Esposito’s show today and he said that these stories should be relegated to page 7 or 8 with little fanfare in the papers. Call me naive or cavalier in the face of a real threat, but I honestly don’t think that a story like this should be reported at all. A noose was found at a construction site. So what? Was it wrapped around a neck? The pontifications that this elicited from Pritzker and other officials were ridiculous. Look at it this way: the worst case scenario here is that some virulent racist left it there as an expression of his hateful views. Even if that’s the case, the fact that he felt the need to do it so anonymously and passive aggressively shows how toxic and indefensible he knows these views to be, not how prevalent they are. This is, to paraphrase Royko in reference to another non-existent public menace, like a timid radical somewhere cooking an American flag in a microwave.
Okay, I see your point.