“but I was very impressed at the end to learn that this talented, thoughtful writer is an eighth grader.” I am surprised by your apparent surprise at the identifying information at the end. The writer made clear to me in the first two paragraphs of her piece that she was a current student by use of the present tense. (“what they SAY to us” ….not “ what they SAID to us”….” HAVE drilled” not “HAD drilled”. ) Maybe you thought this a rhetorical device? In any event, I often like the “kicker” of identifying information at the end…a bit like a surprising final reveal sometimes.
Also interested in what you disagree with in the 8 th grade student’s piece on CPS selective enrollment schools. I will note that NYC attempted her idea of free test prep classes several years ago and it didn’t work but the demographics of those schools was very different than CPS selective enrollment with a large percentage of poor but highly educationally motivated immigrant families.
"Share this list!" I suppose if you need to fill a column with words - it was worthwhile, but if someone needs a list of reasons spelled out for them, maybe they shouldn't be voting.
I actually don't believe that the 8th grader wrote that column by herself. I have a sneaking suspicion that someone else rewrote for her, it was far too polished for anyone 13 years old.
And I too wish they would put the identifying info at the beginning. I now always look at the end to see who they writer is, if I've never heard of them.
I always ignore any column that has certain people writing it, such as the regular opinion pieces that a group of local religious people manage to create & it always includes one rabbi, one minister & the inevitable Pflakey Pfleger, one of the worst publicity whores in Chicago history.
I’m watching the Potato Bowl (readers may find I need to get a life) when it comes time for the Gatorade bath . But wait, no Gatorade it’s French fries! Then Frosted Flakes in another bowl, all kinds of not Gatorade products reflecting the bowl’s sponsor. Will we get rose petals next year at the Rose Bowl? A new trend in jock creativity.
How about the losing coach gets doused in oil at the Valero Bowl next year.
Also, they should award the Heisman at the end of all the bowl games. It is suppose to be for the best college player and bowls should figure into it. At least it would force the candidates to play if they want the award on their resume.
In a perfect world, I would agree with you about the Heisman. But NCAA is far from a perfect world. There was a time when bowl games were rewards for a a good season. Under .500 Minnesota had a good season? And don't forget that most D1 schools play a cupcake son-conference schedule, making it worse. Then there is the little matter of how many players were not playing due either to the transfer portal or a desire to protect oneself before the NFL draft, which, to me, rendered more than a few of the games meaningless. The bowl season is now a joke. Judging by crowds disguised as empty seats at most of them, many probably agree with me.
I completely agree with you on this Lawrence. I'm from Minnesota and it was embarrassing to see them in a bowl game, particularly when the Army-Navy game kicked off with two 5-win teams, meaning that one of them was going to have the requisite six wins. But, as with most all things, follow the money. As long as there are bucks to be made, people will be shameless in creating yet another crazy product named bowl game.
My sympathy for Alan Henry disappeared with his pronounced affinity for John Kass. My blood pressure rises when I think of how long Kass had a platform for his clumsily written, poorly conceived thoughts, so I’ll just say: that guy sucks, and Indiana can keep him.
I agree with your sentiment, but I’d say he actually does many things that are worse. Nevertheless, he is the worst and Chicago is so much better off without him, in print and otherwise.
You guys live within one awfully airtight bubble if someone like Kass represents the sort of fanatical extremist that causes your heads to explode. Though the thought might be difficult to bear, you really should try to pierce it. I would regard a world in which the only views that I ever read or listened to were ones that I completely agree with to be stultifyingly dull, but for some, apparently, it provides a measure of ecstasy.
I get the idea, but what's the point? This guy was a terrible (I mean, TERRIBLE) writer, not funny, not insightful, and seemed to hate Chicago. Life is too short to waste on that.
It reminds me of a Daily Show episode where they got a Hillary supporter and a Trump supporter together and the reporter asked each to name something good about the other candidate. The woman who supported Hillary said something about how Trump seems to like his family. (Maybe too much when it comes to Ivanka, but let's let that go.) The man who liked Trump? He said he didn't have one good thing to say.
Similarly, you think Kass is reading Zorn or, say, The New Republic and saying, "Hmmmm, interesting thoughts here"? Of course not. So why should I try to understand someone who has no interest in anything other than perpetuating bigoted, ill-conceived, fear-mongering bullshit?
i'm not sure why i'm replying to this post, but the post reminds me of the old saying: opinions are like a**holes - everybody's got one, and they all stink.
so that's my opinion.😉
PS - i used to read kass regularly, and listened to his podcast. his insights on Chgo politics were, IMO, superior to those of any other commentator , print or braodcast, in Chgo. he was also a loyal, lifelong White Sox fan. haven't read or listened to him in 3 or more yrs.
“ I am prompted to renew my call for newspapers to put identifying information at the beginning rather than the end of guest opinion essays. “
No! I’m already so tempted to skip ahead and see if I should give any credence to the words I’m about to read. It’s a bad habit of pre-judging that I have to fight against.
I cannot agree with you about wanting the author's identifying info at the beginning of guest opinions pieces. We all have personal biases; all of us. I feel it's important that we be aware of them and continually check ours when forming opinions. It's of better value to read a piece first and come to your own conclusion about whether you agree or not with the author's point and how you feel about the argument made. If you then see the author's name and you instantly re-think your view of the piece, THAT is the learning moment. If you know the author in advance, it's impossible to not have that influence your view of what they write.
Years ago it happened to me twice in a week. I read a piece making the case for something I'd never considered; it was a well-made point and well-crafted argument and I found myself agreeing. I don't even remember the issue and was shocked to see the author was Rahm Emanel who I had *very* strong opinions about and would absolutely not have read if I'd known he was the author. Then I read a piece I thought was completely wrong with a flimsy, uninformed, and poorly-made argument only to find it was written by someone I thought highly of and really admired. That was eye-opening to say the least. That is how you spot your biases. So leaving names at the end is, I think, a pretty easy way to exercise critical thinking skills at a time when everyone chooses to get their news & views from only those they already agree with.
But the name IS always at the top, at least in the Tribune and most newspapers. It's the credentialing information that's at the bottom. And yes, I know there are problems with arguments from authority, but if someone is going to bang on about, say, the virtues of electric vehicles, woiuldn't you want to know where she might be coming from, what her biases might be and so on?
In news stories, speakers always get attribution. You know right away who is speaking and on what authority. No writer ever withholds that information to the end of the story in what amounts to a footnote. You would never see an italic note at the bottom saying "the man who said electric vehicles are overrated and will never catch on was a vice president with the American Petroleum Institute." That would be beyond bizarre.
Of course footnotes with speaker attribution in news stories would be ridiculous. But news pieces are different from opinion pieces, which are to make the case for or against a particular view or course of action. I think it's very valuable to judge an argument offered by the writer on its merits without my being swayed by a preconceived notion about them or their institution. Then learning that their view is influenced by their employer, affiliation, age, school, etc., is additional information that may or may not influence my judgment of their argument.
I know names are at the top, but guest op-ed writers are not usually known names. Over my many years of reading newspapers, I have apparently trained my brain to skip bylines and go right into articles. I realize that is positively horrifying and heretical to a journalist so my apologies for that.
You make an important point. I tend to go right to the bottom of op-ed pieces to see the credentialed info on who the author is before I read it (when I did this the other day with the aforementioned column and saw that it was authored by an 8th grader, I declined reading it). But this practice, of course, is allowing oneself to be lead by confirmation bias.
“After the ball slipped out of Thaw’s grasp it somehow didn’t wobble into the end zone, where he would have been tackled for a safety and Michigan would have lost the game 22-20, and somehow didn’t end up in Alabama’s possession for a chip-shot field goal to win 23-20.”
These words are literally raising my pulse days after the game ended.
Yikes! I was struck over this past weekend how friggin' loud the commercials are (compared to movies and shows) on streamed content. The 2011 CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act which went into effect in 2012 required the FCC to impose regulations on broadcasters (over the air and CATV) that require commercials to have the same "average loudness" as the shows during which they are broadcast. Apparently, the language does not cover streamed content, and the advertisers/streaming platforms are taking full advantage of the loophole. I hope that this worthless Congress can at least agree on amending the CALM Act to have the FCC regs cover streamed content as well.
I can assure you, none of the networks follow that law & the independent stations definitely don't.
The FCC is worthless in investigating & then fining violators of its rules & regulations.
But the worst thing the FCC doesn't do is enforce the Do Not Call law & the Do Not Call registry. I receive so many spoofed numbers that are either rotten robocalls or the live ones that are obviously from India, the Philippines or some other country that has English speakers, it's utterly insane. At least since Dec. 7, the Medicare frauds have stopped calling, until next October.
The FCC's (and FTC's) enforcement staff is so limited (and it's the FTC's responsibility to enforce the DNC laws), that they cannot keep up with telemarketing technology advances. With respect to broadcast/streaming services and the sound volume of commercials, the number of potentially bad actors is several magnitudes smaller - and thus regulation is *much* more easily enforced. Call your Reps and Senators about the loud streaming commercials!
https://www.donotcall.gov/ Which is on the FTC's website - and spam calling is considered a deceptive trade practice. See this from the FCC's site.
Do Not Call
Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act in 1991 in response to consumer concerns about the growing number of unsolicited telephone marketing calls to their homes and the increasing use of automated and prerecorded messages. In response, the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules requiring anyone making a solicitation call to your home to provide his or her name, the name of the person or entity on whose behalf the call is being made and a telephone number or address at which that person or entity can be contacted.
Working with the Federal Trade Commission, the agency developed the national Do Not Call Registry, which applies to all telemarketers and covers interstate and intrastate telemarketing calls. Commercial telemarketers are not allowed to call you if your number is on the registry, subject to certain exceptions.
I find it disappointing that you felt it necessary to comment on the dating life of a 34-year-old woman. The only one who should have an opinion on Taylor Swift's romances is Taylor Swift. It's literally no one else's business. Her music is not for me -- I cannot name a single song she's done -- but she's hugely successful in her career. If you wanted to get predictions about her, maybe how many Grammy Awards she'll win in 2024, or whether or not her next tour will be as successful as the Eras Tour.
Considering that she's pretty much made a career out of writing songs about her dating life, I'd say she's made it the public's business. Though why other people care is a different story.
Yeah, right. I’m sure that Ms. Swift loathes the publicity and feels unconscionably violated by it. And I find it disappointing that you would think it appropriate to speculate on the awards prospects and projected gate receipts of a 34 year old woman. The only people that allowed to have opinions on these matters are Ms. Swift, her agents and the concert promoters. It is literally no one else’s business.
"I am prompted to renew my call for newspapers to put identifying information at the beginning rather than the end of guest opinion essays. "
I wonder how many people wouldn't bother to read an opinion essay if they knew from the get-go that it was by someone with whom they assumed they would disagree.
Pat & Lolly Vegas were their stage names, taken before the Vasquez brothers embraced more of their cultural heritage, and became Redbone. They were encouraged to do so by Jimi Hendrix, and were a huge influence on him, who was also part Cherokee. “The Witch Queen of New Orleans” is in my regular rotation around Halloween time.
“but I was very impressed at the end to learn that this talented, thoughtful writer is an eighth grader.” I am surprised by your apparent surprise at the identifying information at the end. The writer made clear to me in the first two paragraphs of her piece that she was a current student by use of the present tense. (“what they SAY to us” ….not “ what they SAID to us”….” HAVE drilled” not “HAD drilled”. ) Maybe you thought this a rhetorical device? In any event, I often like the “kicker” of identifying information at the end…a bit like a surprising final reveal sometimes.
Re: Smother's Brohters 1963 video. Please provide a trigger warning before posting content from the era of the "folk music scare". ;>
Also interested in what you disagree with in the 8 th grade student’s piece on CPS selective enrollment schools. I will note that NYC attempted her idea of free test prep classes several years ago and it didn’t work but the demographics of those schools was very different than CPS selective enrollment with a large percentage of poor but highly educationally motivated immigrant families.
"Share this list!" I suppose if you need to fill a column with words - it was worthwhile, but if someone needs a list of reasons spelled out for them, maybe they shouldn't be voting.
If Trump is elected, I would be worried if I were living in South Korea.
I actually don't believe that the 8th grader wrote that column by herself. I have a sneaking suspicion that someone else rewrote for her, it was far too polished for anyone 13 years old.
And I too wish they would put the identifying info at the beginning. I now always look at the end to see who they writer is, if I've never heard of them.
I always ignore any column that has certain people writing it, such as the regular opinion pieces that a group of local religious people manage to create & it always includes one rabbi, one minister & the inevitable Pflakey Pfleger, one of the worst publicity whores in Chicago history.
I’ve read a lot of student essays and this seems very consistent with what I’ve seen from the best tier of 13 year olds.
Some further comments on bowl games.
I’m watching the Potato Bowl (readers may find I need to get a life) when it comes time for the Gatorade bath . But wait, no Gatorade it’s French fries! Then Frosted Flakes in another bowl, all kinds of not Gatorade products reflecting the bowl’s sponsor. Will we get rose petals next year at the Rose Bowl? A new trend in jock creativity.
How about the losing coach gets doused in oil at the Valero Bowl next year.
Also, they should award the Heisman at the end of all the bowl games. It is suppose to be for the best college player and bowls should figure into it. At least it would force the candidates to play if they want the award on their resume.
In a perfect world, I would agree with you about the Heisman. But NCAA is far from a perfect world. There was a time when bowl games were rewards for a a good season. Under .500 Minnesota had a good season? And don't forget that most D1 schools play a cupcake son-conference schedule, making it worse. Then there is the little matter of how many players were not playing due either to the transfer portal or a desire to protect oneself before the NFL draft, which, to me, rendered more than a few of the games meaningless. The bowl season is now a joke. Judging by crowds disguised as empty seats at most of them, many probably agree with me.
I completely agree with you on this Lawrence. I'm from Minnesota and it was embarrassing to see them in a bowl game, particularly when the Army-Navy game kicked off with two 5-win teams, meaning that one of them was going to have the requisite six wins. But, as with most all things, follow the money. As long as there are bucks to be made, people will be shameless in creating yet another crazy product named bowl game.
I remember 1978 when a classmate was denigrating "those dogs." Those Huskies took down those Wolverines. Go Dawgs!
Blocked and reported! Cancelled!
Cancel culture can be funny. This was my morning chuckle.
My sympathy for Alan Henry disappeared with his pronounced affinity for John Kass. My blood pressure rises when I think of how long Kass had a platform for his clumsily written, poorly conceived thoughts, so I’ll just say: that guy sucks, and Indiana can keep him.
Nothing worse than Kass's wretched moutza columns or his even more idiotic ones about his tomato plants.
I agree with your sentiment, but I’d say he actually does many things that are worse. Nevertheless, he is the worst and Chicago is so much better off without him, in print and otherwise.
It was also a rude thing to add in for no reason. "Thanks for the support but I like your enemy more."
"Your enemy" might be a little strong, but yeah, agreed.
I note that on X, Kass is a profligate re-poster of his readers' "attaboy" responses to his columns.
Things get slow in Indiana.
You guys live within one awfully airtight bubble if someone like Kass represents the sort of fanatical extremist that causes your heads to explode. Though the thought might be difficult to bear, you really should try to pierce it. I would regard a world in which the only views that I ever read or listened to were ones that I completely agree with to be stultifyingly dull, but for some, apparently, it provides a measure of ecstasy.
I am subscribed to Kass on X for exactly that purpose.
So am I, only on email since I don't do X. I also comment occasionally, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't repost mine.
I get the idea, but what's the point? This guy was a terrible (I mean, TERRIBLE) writer, not funny, not insightful, and seemed to hate Chicago. Life is too short to waste on that.
It reminds me of a Daily Show episode where they got a Hillary supporter and a Trump supporter together and the reporter asked each to name something good about the other candidate. The woman who supported Hillary said something about how Trump seems to like his family. (Maybe too much when it comes to Ivanka, but let's let that go.) The man who liked Trump? He said he didn't have one good thing to say.
Similarly, you think Kass is reading Zorn or, say, The New Republic and saying, "Hmmmm, interesting thoughts here"? Of course not. So why should I try to understand someone who has no interest in anything other than perpetuating bigoted, ill-conceived, fear-mongering bullshit?
i'm not sure why i'm replying to this post, but the post reminds me of the old saying: opinions are like a**holes - everybody's got one, and they all stink.
so that's my opinion.😉
PS - i used to read kass regularly, and listened to his podcast. his insights on Chgo politics were, IMO, superior to those of any other commentator , print or braodcast, in Chgo. he was also a loyal, lifelong White Sox fan. haven't read or listened to him in 3 or more yrs.
“ I am prompted to renew my call for newspapers to put identifying information at the beginning rather than the end of guest opinion essays. “
No! I’m already so tempted to skip ahead and see if I should give any credence to the words I’m about to read. It’s a bad habit of pre-judging that I have to fight against.
I cannot agree with you about wanting the author's identifying info at the beginning of guest opinions pieces. We all have personal biases; all of us. I feel it's important that we be aware of them and continually check ours when forming opinions. It's of better value to read a piece first and come to your own conclusion about whether you agree or not with the author's point and how you feel about the argument made. If you then see the author's name and you instantly re-think your view of the piece, THAT is the learning moment. If you know the author in advance, it's impossible to not have that influence your view of what they write.
Years ago it happened to me twice in a week. I read a piece making the case for something I'd never considered; it was a well-made point and well-crafted argument and I found myself agreeing. I don't even remember the issue and was shocked to see the author was Rahm Emanel who I had *very* strong opinions about and would absolutely not have read if I'd known he was the author. Then I read a piece I thought was completely wrong with a flimsy, uninformed, and poorly-made argument only to find it was written by someone I thought highly of and really admired. That was eye-opening to say the least. That is how you spot your biases. So leaving names at the end is, I think, a pretty easy way to exercise critical thinking skills at a time when everyone chooses to get their news & views from only those they already agree with.
I agree.
But the name IS always at the top, at least in the Tribune and most newspapers. It's the credentialing information that's at the bottom. And yes, I know there are problems with arguments from authority, but if someone is going to bang on about, say, the virtues of electric vehicles, woiuldn't you want to know where she might be coming from, what her biases might be and so on?
In news stories, speakers always get attribution. You know right away who is speaking and on what authority. No writer ever withholds that information to the end of the story in what amounts to a footnote. You would never see an italic note at the bottom saying "the man who said electric vehicles are overrated and will never catch on was a vice president with the American Petroleum Institute." That would be beyond bizarre.
Of course footnotes with speaker attribution in news stories would be ridiculous. But news pieces are different from opinion pieces, which are to make the case for or against a particular view or course of action. I think it's very valuable to judge an argument offered by the writer on its merits without my being swayed by a preconceived notion about them or their institution. Then learning that their view is influenced by their employer, affiliation, age, school, etc., is additional information that may or may not influence my judgment of their argument.
I know names are at the top, but guest op-ed writers are not usually known names. Over my many years of reading newspapers, I have apparently trained my brain to skip bylines and go right into articles. I realize that is positively horrifying and heretical to a journalist so my apologies for that.
You make an important point. I tend to go right to the bottom of op-ed pieces to see the credentialed info on who the author is before I read it (when I did this the other day with the aforementioned column and saw that it was authored by an 8th grader, I declined reading it). But this practice, of course, is allowing oneself to be lead by confirmation bias.
Agree completely!
“After the ball slipped out of Thaw’s grasp it somehow didn’t wobble into the end zone, where he would have been tackled for a safety and Michigan would have lost the game 22-20, and somehow didn’t end up in Alabama’s possession for a chip-shot field goal to win 23-20.”
These words are literally raising my pulse days after the game ended.
Liked the majority of the ToTW today. Good crop!
Yikes! I was struck over this past weekend how friggin' loud the commercials are (compared to movies and shows) on streamed content. The 2011 CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act which went into effect in 2012 required the FCC to impose regulations on broadcasters (over the air and CATV) that require commercials to have the same "average loudness" as the shows during which they are broadcast. Apparently, the language does not cover streamed content, and the advertisers/streaming platforms are taking full advantage of the loophole. I hope that this worthless Congress can at least agree on amending the CALM Act to have the FCC regs cover streamed content as well.
I can assure you, none of the networks follow that law & the independent stations definitely don't.
The FCC is worthless in investigating & then fining violators of its rules & regulations.
But the worst thing the FCC doesn't do is enforce the Do Not Call law & the Do Not Call registry. I receive so many spoofed numbers that are either rotten robocalls or the live ones that are obviously from India, the Philippines or some other country that has English speakers, it's utterly insane. At least since Dec. 7, the Medicare frauds have stopped calling, until next October.
The FCC's (and FTC's) enforcement staff is so limited (and it's the FTC's responsibility to enforce the DNC laws), that they cannot keep up with telemarketing technology advances. With respect to broadcast/streaming services and the sound volume of commercials, the number of potentially bad actors is several magnitudes smaller - and thus regulation is *much* more easily enforced. Call your Reps and Senators about the loud streaming commercials!
You file a 1088 form with the FCC for Do Not Call violations, not the FTC.
https://www.donotcall.gov/ Which is on the FTC's website - and spam calling is considered a deceptive trade practice. See this from the FCC's site.
Do Not Call
Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act in 1991 in response to consumer concerns about the growing number of unsolicited telephone marketing calls to their homes and the increasing use of automated and prerecorded messages. In response, the Federal Communications Commission adopted rules requiring anyone making a solicitation call to your home to provide his or her name, the name of the person or entity on whose behalf the call is being made and a telephone number or address at which that person or entity can be contacted.
Working with the Federal Trade Commission, the agency developed the national Do Not Call Registry, which applies to all telemarketers and covers interstate and intrastate telemarketing calls. Commercial telemarketers are not allowed to call you if your number is on the registry, subject to certain exceptions.
I find it disappointing that you felt it necessary to comment on the dating life of a 34-year-old woman. The only one who should have an opinion on Taylor Swift's romances is Taylor Swift. It's literally no one else's business. Her music is not for me -- I cannot name a single song she's done -- but she's hugely successful in her career. If you wanted to get predictions about her, maybe how many Grammy Awards she'll win in 2024, or whether or not her next tour will be as successful as the Eras Tour.
Considering that she's pretty much made a career out of writing songs about her dating life, I'd say she's made it the public's business. Though why other people care is a different story.
Maybe, but don't most singer/songwriters write about their lives? Why aren't we making predictions about famous men's dating lives as well?
No. I can’t think of any man that has written so many songs about their exes. Can you?
I think that plenty of people are interested in and/or comment about Leonardo DiCaprio's dating life - see one of the ToTW entries!
Yeah, right. I’m sure that Ms. Swift loathes the publicity and feels unconscionably violated by it. And I find it disappointing that you would think it appropriate to speculate on the awards prospects and projected gate receipts of a 34 year old woman. The only people that allowed to have opinions on these matters are Ms. Swift, her agents and the concert promoters. It is literally no one else’s business.
"I am prompted to renew my call for newspapers to put identifying information at the beginning rather than the end of guest opinion essays. "
I wonder how many people wouldn't bother to read an opinion essay if they knew from the get-go that it was by someone with whom they assumed they would disagree.
Pat & Lolly Vegas were their stage names, taken before the Vasquez brothers embraced more of their cultural heritage, and became Redbone. They were encouraged to do so by Jimi Hendrix, and were a huge influence on him, who was also part Cherokee. “The Witch Queen of New Orleans” is in my regular rotation around Halloween time.