One shining moment! The winners of Tweet Madness 2024

& a skeptical look at how WBEZ-FM spends its money

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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.

Cut down the (inter)nets! They are the champions

The Final Four battle for the top tweet of the last 12 months was extremely close.

The winner in the written tweets division was one of my all-time favorites:

Doctor: Your parents were in a car accident. Me: How are they? Doctor: They're extremely critical. Me: So they're awake, that's good. — @Browtweaten 

The name associated with this account is “Adam Cerious,” and I could find nothing about that person online except that he hails from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Just behind in second place was, “Me: It's not about how many times you fall, it's about how many times you get back up. Cop: That's not how field sobriety tests work. — @HenpeckedHal

In third place was “When I was a kid you could go to a store with just a dollar and come home with four comic books, three candy bars, two packs of trading cards, a bag of chips and a cold drink. Now they have cameras everywhere,” from an unknown source.

And in fourth place, “I love when my husband says, “Correct me if I’m wrong,” like I would pass up that opportunity. — @MumOfTw0 

This is the visual tweets winner.

I don’t usually credit these viral images to any one particular person because the provenance of these jokes is almost always murky. Credit is lost or stolen many times along the way (the same thing also happens with written tweets at times).

Gettin’ a little tired of staged viral videos

The 2015 video of Benny the Bull “rescuing” a woman from her indifferent boyfriend in a Boston Celtics sweatshirt shows up on my timelines every so often. And yeah, it’s funny — or would be if it depicted an actual confrontation and not an obviously scripted bit.

So many of these TikTok-friendly videos that purport to show actual embarrassing or amusing moments that just happened to be video recorded are staged that I no longer find them entertaining.

“You’ll never believe what happened when …” clips are, in fact, quite believable when you can tell that everyone is on the stunt.

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

WBEZ layoffs

I wrote last week about the deep cuts at Chicago Public Media — most of them at NPR affiliate WBEZ-FM 91.5 and its sister station “urban alternative” Vocalo 91.1 FM.

Connell — Giving a 19% raise to a CEO who is leaving? You gotta be kiddin' me. How stupid.

Zorn — Very stupid. Lame-duck CEO Matt Moog, who in December announced he would be leaving Chicago Public Media (the combined forces of WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times) as soon as his successor was in place, accepted a substantial raise to $633,310 and shrugged that this was what the compensation committee had recommended.

Just about every listener I’ve spoken with about the bloodletting at the station — 14 jobs, most in the podcast area — has been astounded and angered by the idea that the CEO of a struggling not-for-profit would make that much money and would then accept such a generous raise when he knew the organization was in financial straits.

They are also astounded that a struggling radio station just opened $6.4 million state-of-the-art broadcast studios.

In short, they feel lied to.

Public radio relies on support from listeners, philanthropic organizations and underwriters. I will not be surprised if these funders say, “Wait a minute, you just cut back to one hour of local programming a day and you just slashed your creative team. Where exactly is our money going?”

Here’s a look at the station’s IRS form 990 disclosure form from 2022, the most recent one posted online. Note the number of highly paid executives, their bonuses (far right column) and the cash doled out for “consulting services” and for “legal services” above and beyond what the station’s general legal counsel is taking home:

Though there has been turnover in some of these positions since 2022, you still have to ask, how many of those 14 jobs could have been saved by cutting some of the management, legal and consulting bloat and trimming a few salaries? Note that the current management roster includes a “Chief People Officer” and “Chief Advancement Officer.”

Yes, times are tough in much of the mainstream media. But the employees who are going to keep and perhaps grow the audience are the innovative writers, reporters, producers and editors who are making unique content, not the content officer and the managing director of content development and the vice president of communications who helps spread the word — those three pulled down more than $672,000 in 2022. Add in all the third party consultants and you nearly double that to $1.3 million.

For more on this, consult the excellent reporting of WBEZ’s own Dave McKinney:

• Chicago Public Media lays off 14 staffers, citing financial troubles

• A major foundation expresses sadness but urges patient support for local journalism after Chicago Public Media layoffs

(The move) comes as the company’s most recent filings with the Internal Revenue Service show Chicago Public Media reported a nearly $9 million profit for the fiscal year ending last June. Moog has said the 990 filing doesn’t fully reflect the operational budget.

No hint of serious financial struggles was evident in two sets of Chicago Public Media meeting minutes released to WBEZ from the past six months, including as recently as January 16.

During that board meeting, minutes show Moog provided a revenue forecast and indicated that “the organization is expected to meet the budgeted goal for net operating results, as expenses have been managed to offset soft revenue.”

And in a November 9 meeting of the Chicago Public Media board’s Finance and Investment Committee, meeting minutes reflect that company investments were “outperforming targets” during a one-year period.

McKinney quotes Northwestern University journalism professor Tim Franklin: ‘“The optics are unfortunate.”

I’ll say.

Star-Spangled correspondence

Last week I wrote to defend those who don’t stand for the national anthem in the wake of the controversy over the LSU women’s basketball team staying in the locker room during the anthem before the team played Iowa in a quarterfinal match. This was part of my general commentary on patriotism that included a discussion of protest burning of the American flag.

Mae S. — You wrote: “Most of us rise when we’re at the stadium or arena to display to one another a belief in the values we share, not to remind ourselves of our own values. That we can do any time. We rise upon request in such settings to proclaim to others something about ourselves, similar to the reason some people ostentatiously pray in public.”

But I actually feel a sense of pride when I rise for the national anthem. My most recent experience with a performance of the National Anthem was at the college graduation of my granddaughter from the University of Virginia last May, and I can still feel that sense of happiness to be an American at an occasion like that. My leftist politics were very likely different from a large percent of the audience, but it didn’t matter. It felt important.

Steve T – The anthem ritual before sporting events is essentially propaganda, serving no clear purpose other than offering the sheer human joy of singing in unison with thousands of people.

Nancy Meyer — Norman Thomas, socialist and social reformer (1884-1968) once said, "If you want a symbolic gesture, don’t burn the flag, wash it." Wouldn't a public flag-washing be fun? Would onlookers get as outraged as they do by burning?

Zorn — It might be less inflammatory, so to speak, and better convey the message not that the protesters hate what the country stands for, but that they hate how the country has fallen short of what it ostensibly stands for. I sense that this distinction is lost on observers, which is why burning a flag is not a particularly persuasive form of protest.

Garry Spelled Correctly — I flat out hate our national anthem, it was written by a creep who was an active supporter of slavery. Our anthem should be "America the Beautiful," which is about the entire country, not one stupid battle in a supremely stupid war!

Zorn — The National Park Service page on Francis Scott Key notes that, as a lawyer, he did defend “enslaved individuals seeking their freedom,” but:

Key most likely purchased his first enslaved person in 1800 or 1801, and by 1820 he owned six enslaved people. His family owned slaves at the time of his birth, and at least one of his children owned slaves after his death. He (also) defended other slave owners seeking to regain runaway “property” in several cases as an attorney. Key vehemently opposed abolition and favored the idea of colonization, helping to establish the American Colonization Society (to send Black people back to Africa) in 1816.

The Smithsonian has more:

Key not only profited from slaves, he harbored racist conceptions of American citizenship and human potential. Africans in America, he said, were: “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.” … Key prosecuted a New York doctor living in Georgetown for possessing abolitionist pamphlets.

In the resulting case, U.S. v. Reuben Crandall, Key made national headlines by asking whether the property rights of slaveholders outweighed the free speech rights of those arguing for slavery’s abolishment. Key hoped to silence abolitionists, who, he charged, wished to “associate and amalgamate with the Negro.”

Though Crandall’s offense was nothing more than possessing abolitionist literature, Key felt that abolitionists’ free speech rights were so dangerous that he sought, unsuccessfully, to have Crandall hanged.

In contrast, “American the Beautiful” author Katharine Lee Bates was quite progressive for her time (1859-1929). I imagine sadly that the fact that she’s an LGBTQ icon would be used by some “Star-Spangled Banner” enthusiasts as reason to reject the change.

Laurence E Siegel – Men and women in the military don't serve so that everyone can stand for a song. They serve so that everyone can decide whether or not to stand for the song.

Zorn —Well said!

Too soon to bash Lieberman?

Bob E — In Charlie Meyerson’s “Squaring Up the News” section he wrote, “American Prospect columnist Rick Perlstein mourns not the death of former Democratic ex-Sen. Joe Lieberman: ‘I’m grateful it happened before he could do any more damage.”’

The guy's dead! Perlstein couldn't have written this column before he died? I'm not defending Lieberman, his ideas or his actions. I'm defending some sense of decency. Lieberman was just a politician with different politics than Perlstein's.

Do you curate any of the material that your contributors send your way? In your stewardship of the PS, have you decided it's OK to take shots at the dead? And, in this particular case, at the recently died?

Zorn — Being a significant public figure active in advancing political positions means that you’re not entitled to the customary hagiographic obituaries when you die. Death is an occasion to sum up a person’s life, and there has been plenty of gooey praise heaped on Lieberman’s legacy in recent days, so this contrary opinion struck me as not only defensible but a necessary counterbalance. Lieberman’s defections and apostasies were well covered in his life and to the end he was attempting to undermine the Democratic party in ways that would ultimately benefit Donald Trump.

(See: “Every person in this room is paying more for health care because of Joe Fucking Lieberman.”)

Meyerson’s links are to responsible and interesting content. I don’t necessarily endorse the views of everyone to whom he links, but neither does he. Informed news consumers tend to enjoy different points of view, even those that differ from their own.

The effort to outlaw fake child porn

I wrote last week about legislation moving through the General Assembly to outlaw Artificial Intelligence-created pornographic images and videos that did not involve the abuse and exploitation of actual children. Are those who would consume such vile content guilty of anything other than a thought crime? Readers had a lot to say.

Skeptic — A valid argument for outlawing simulated child pornography is that those charged with producing real child porn sometimes argue in court that the prosecution must prove that the content is not simulated imagery. I have a cousin who is an expert in photography. Years ago he would sometimes be an expert witness in cases against alleged child pornographers. This predates digital images. Based on his expertise, he could analyze photographs and determine if they were composite photographs.

Melinda A K. — We don't criminalize thought without action. For example, being a racist isn't a crime.

Jake H. —Virtual child porn may be criminalized so long it qualifies under the so called Miller Test — promulgated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1973 case Miller v. California. It says a work is considered obscene if it meets these three tests:

1. Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,

2. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,

3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

I think the obscenity exception to First Amendment protection basically lives on, despite much whittling down and lack of very clear standards and lack of will to enforce obscenity restrictions more broadly, to capture virtual child porn. The "value" prong of the obscenity test seems unworkable, a confession that the Court has not been able to advance much, at the level of legal principle, on Justice Potter Stewart's famous 1964 words re "hard-core pornography," understood to lack First Amendment protection: " I know it when I see it.”

Zorn — I haven’t thought of the Miller Test in forever, perhaps because it feels like such a dead letter standard and one that would be impossible to enforce in the internet age. By what logic would we want to ban pornography? The BBC looked at all the alleged harms of freely available porn and found the evidence “mixed.” And, as I wrote last week, research has failed to show evidence that fake child porn would be harmful.

And anyway, society permits a lot of potentially harmful activities — smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling come immediately to mind.

What makes this such a hard question and tough topic is how awful most of us find those images and how wicked the actual crime of pedophilia is along with the increasing ability of AI to cross over the uncanny valley and render video images that appear extremely lifelike.

It's the ultimate test of our understanding of the line between imagination and action, real and take. As I said, I can't imagine a lawmaker voting against the proposal in Springfield. But widely available videos depict all sorts of horrible crimes, usually by actors who are not harmed, and if we’re going to ban images that depict terrible crimes, we should ban fake or cartoon portrayals of murder and rape.

Ticket prices at the college basketball championships

Tom Krish — You wrote, "How popular is women’s college basketball right now? At this writing (early Thursday morning) the cheapest ticket for this weekend’s Women’s Final Four in Cleveland is $707. For the Men’s Final Four in Glendale, Arizona, the cheapest ticket is $518." Yes, but the women's games were in a 19,000-seat arena. The men were playing in a stadium with 60,000-plus seats.

Zorn — You’re absolutely right and I didn’t consider this. But it gives me the chance to say how strange it is to play basketball in indoor football arenas. The fan experience has got to be mostly terrible.

A better measure is going to be the overnight ratings for the men’s final game compared to the ratings for the women’s final. That the men’s final was not on broadcast network TV, as the women's was, stands to make that comparison misleadings as well.

Long time listener, first time defector

The following letter to the Mincing Rascals podcast team was forwarded to me so I won’t use the writer’s name:

I have been a longtime listener to the Mincing Rascals but that ended today. The hardest pill for me to swallow is how radical Eric Zorn has become. He is obsessed with President Trump and he makes unbelievable claims about Republicans in a generalized fashion. Not long ago he stated that Republicans don't like to have sex for fun. No sane person would say that and actually believe that to be the case. Then he claimed that Republicans are trying to eliminate in-vitro fertilization. That statement is just clearly absurd. I haven't heard a single person make that statement. I think the vast majority of Americans support IVF regardless of their political affiliation.

Zorn — I didn't say Republicans don't like to have sex for fun. Surely they do! But those who staunchly oppose abortion rights appear to me to be animated by disapproval of others having non-procreative sex. NARAL has well documented Conservative Attacks on Birth Control and NBC News among others has reported that Conservative influencers are pushing an anti-birth control message.

Politico reported:

In July 2022, Senate Republicans blocked the Democrat-led Right to Contraception Act – which would have enshrined the right to contraception into federal law. The act passed in the House of Representatives, which was then controlled by Democrats — with only eight Republicans voting for it.

And the linkage in organized religion between opposition to abortion rights and opposition to contraception speaks for itself.

Meanwhile, “Republicans block Senate bill to protect nationwide access to IVF treatments” is a typical headline that, yes, conflicts with the rush of Republicans saying that they support IVF but engage in a lot of homina-homina when trying to square their support for it with their insistence that life begins at the moment of conception.

From the Washington Post, to wit:

Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who signed on to the Life at Conception Act as a House member last Congress, said he supports both IVF and the belief that life begins at conception. However, he said “there are other complexities” when asked what to do with unused frozen embryos.

As for former President Trump, I freely admit to being obsessed with the idea that restoring him to office would be a total disaster for our country.

South Park’s take on Columbus. Was it illuminating?

Steven K. — The other night I was channel surfing and  stumbled upon “Holiday Special,” a 2017 episode of “South Park” on Comedy Central.  The thrust of the episode is that Columbus Day has recently been cancelled as a school holiday due to its political incorrectness (prompting outrage from the students over their getting screwed out of a day off). Controversy and disgrace ensue when old photos emerge of one of the parents dressing up as Columbus in his youth, but salvation becomes attainable when he learns of a genealogy company that offers DNA testing that can help Caucasians discover trace amounts of DNA of oppressed minorities in their blood lines, and thus enable them to claim permanent victim status. I will say no more so as not to spoil, but from there the rest of the episode unfolds as possibly the most eloquent lancing of the pretenses of wokeness that I have ever seen. I urge everyone with a sense of humor (a group that, alas, is far less considerable than it used to be) to watch and enjoy.

Let’s strive to be the sensible liberals that most PS readers are. Progressivism and wokeness are religions, and like many religions, they breed fanatics and push those that are not all in away.

Zorn – The episode is not available on YouTube, but critic Charles Bramesco at Vulture had a less enthusiastic take on it:

(It’s) a constant refrain of alt-right types, that those in pursuit of social justice secretly love that the world’s full of bigotry and hate because it grants them the moral high ground. These assumptions paint a depressing portrait of a world that doesn’t allow for genuine decency, only point-earning. … “Holiday Special” promotes a mind-set that leaves no room for true hearts, saying much more about the people who created it than anything else.

On renaming a roadway for Barack Obama

Mark H. — You passed along a suggestion that we name a now-unnamed stretch of Interstate 57 for Barack Obama. But note that I-55 from the Tri-State Tollway south to mile marker 202 near Pontiac was renamed the “Barack Obama Presidential Expressway.” in 2017.

Zorn — I had forgotten that! It’s about an 80-mile stretch of what’s called the Stevenson Expressway in Chicago and on the route that Obama traveled when he went to Springfield as a state senator. I’ll bet Obama would be cool with removing that designation if it meant that I-57, which begins at about 95th and State Streets on the South Side, were to get the Obama name.

Ya gotta see these tweets!

This week we resume our regular schedule of tweet contests: A set of of visual tweets to vote on every Tuesday and a set of written tweets on Thursday.

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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