Rocky Mountain high?
Maybe. But if the Colorado Supreme Court ruling doesn't politically kill Trump, it seems likely to make him stronger
`12-21-2023 (issue No. 120)
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.
This week:
Colorado Supreme Court ruling knocking Trump off the ballot unlikely to be good news for Democrats
The Chicago Board of Education stepped on a rake with the release of its vague ‘transition’ plan
News and Views — On the Catholic Church and gay couples, the coming change in leadership at the Old Town School of Folk Music, crime panic, the nixed sanctuary-city referendum and secret police misconduct hearings,
Haley’s comment — An update on the fallout from the vile remarks of state NAACP leader Teresa Haley
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
Skyway robbery? — Another look at the coming toll increase on the most expensive road in America
Re:Tweets — The winning visual tweet and this week’s contest finalists
Tune of the Week — “Mary Had a Baby,” a Christmas song with an infectious Cajun groove
Last week’s winning tweet
I never understood how the little drummer boy’s parents could just send him outside alone at night to play his drum until my daughter brought a recorder home from school. — @simoncholland
Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll. I have also posted a selection here of the top Christmas tweets of all time.
Colorado Supreme Court ruling knocking Trump off the ballot unlikely to be good news for Democrats
There seem to be two broad schools of thought about the impact of Tuesday’s surprise 4-3 vote by the Colorado Supreme Court knocking former President Donald Trump off the state’s ballot because he “engaged in insurrection” against the United States:
That the ruling will be a huge problem for Trump. That it will cost him support among moderate and swing voters and open the door for the Republican establishment — aided by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling validating the Colorado ruling — to dump the polarizing, erratic, manifestly unfit would-be dictator and instead nominate a more mainstream Republican for president.
That the conservative U.S. Supreme Court will almost certainly overturn the Colorado ruling, thus fueling Trump’s piteous claims that he’s being politically persecuted and causing his poll numbers to rise. His entire campaign is fueled by grievances of one sort or another, after all, and his support will be inflamed by the idea that the courts want to deny people the right to vote for Dear Leader.
I’m in the second camp. Trump’s manifest perfidy seems to be a feature for his backers, not a bug. The more flagrant his transgressions — the recent Führeresque remarks about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” come to mind — and the more criminal and civil charges against him pile up, the more staunch his support becomes.
Colorado is a Democratic state anyway — President Joe Biden won 55% of the vote there in 2020 — so even if Trump isn’t on the presidential ballot there, it won’t hurt his chances for an Electoral College victory.
The Chicago Board of Education stepped on a rake with the release of its vague ‘transition’ plan
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s school board last week voted for a resolution calling for a five-year “transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies” and to emphasize improving neighborhood schools. The resolution was so light on details that it prompted concern that the system was going to eliminate selective-enrollment schools for high-performing students.
London’s Daily Mail headline, “Chicago's progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson announces plans to ax Windy City's high-achieving selective-enrollment high schools to boost 'equity' despite promising not to during election campaign,” reflected an interpretation that officials hastened to dispel.
From Nader Issa’s story in the Sun-Times:
The Board of Education reiterated (Dec. 14) that its resolution to reprioritize neighborhood schools doesn’t mean the imminent end of charters, selective enrollment or magnet schools, and that no schools are facing closure. But the whole portfolio of schools will be examined, leaders said, to find the best approach and give kids in every community access to a quality school near their home.
But there’s some wiggle room there, and not an emphatic affirmation of support for selective-enrollment, magnet and charter school options that are keeping many families with school-age children from fleeing to the suburbs. A heightened emphasis on improving neighborhood schools is a good thing, no question, but in a district where about 3 in 4 high school students and 1 in 2 elementary school students don’t attend their neighborhood schools, passing a vague resolution that didn’t strongly reassure those who attend or hope to attend current schools was a blunder by the board.
Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools from 2017 to 2021, penned a Sun-Times op ed that blasted the resolution as irresponsible and argued that the current system has “helped Chicago preserve a degree of economic and racial diversity.”
Strong neighborhood schools and choice schools can and do coexist. Nothing is stopping policymakers from investing more in them. … Continuing to pit one against the other is misleading and divisive. … This is one of the most inequitable, anti-Black policy actions anyone can take. It must stop.
Why is this being done before the newly elected school board is in place? Why is an unelected board rushing through a decision that could profoundly impact present and future families in the district? Who is managing community engagement, and who is accountable for the transparency, honesty and accessibility of that process to parents?
Serving on the Board of Education is a privilege. It’s not a platform to drive agendas. There is no justification for taking away the rights of parents and putting the interests of their children at risk.
Sticking to the union
Late on a rainy Saturday morning, members of the Chicago News Guild union who work for Tribune Publishing’s newspapers rallied by Tribune Tower, former home of the company’s flagship publication. The union was formally recognized on May 6, 2018, but still has no contract with Alden Global Capital, the investment firm that bought the paper shortly before I left in June 2021.
I attended out of solidarity — some of those still at the paper are friends — and also out of self interest — Chicago and this region need strong local news outlets as a bulwark against corruption and a source of reliable information.
Do I have my issues with the business side of the paper? Yes. And is the Tribune less robust than it was before the hedge fund vultures swooped in? Again, yes. But the staff that remains is doing valuable work under difficult circumstances, and supporting them is, to my mind, a civic duty as well as a pleasure.
I thought Picayune Sentinel readers might want to get a better sense of the issues involved in this labor dispute, so I got permission from Tribune film critic Michael Phillips to reprint his prepared remarks to the crowd:
Rain or shine, I am proud to stand with my fellow Chicago Tribune workers.
We formed a union in 2018, in the year of “Avengers: Infinity War,” to get the fair shake Tribune employees deserve.
In good faith, members of the bargaining team have worked hundreds, thousands of hours — on their own dime — on getting our first guild contract. So far it’s taken five and a half years. Which was, I believe, the running time of “Avengers: Infinity War.”
Half of those five-plus years, we’ve been tangling with Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund — sorry, “family of investment firms” — which manages about $760 million in assets. We are part of those assets.
We are here today, in front of our old home, the Tribune Tower, to talk about what’s fair.
Our friend and colleague Rick Kogan is unable to join us today. But he wrote this for the occasion:
I’m here in spirit and here to echo these words from Studs Terkel:
“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread. For recognition as well as cash. For astonishment, rather than torpor; In short, for a sort of life–rather than a Monday thru Friday sort of dying.”
We at this newspaper deserve such a life. And to be denied what we deserve by moneymen is a shame and a sin.
Onward! Rick Kogan.
At the bargaining table, Alden Global Capital says what we think is fair is ridiculous. Forget about any actual economic gains, they say, even after years, decades, entire careers at the Tribune without a single cost of living adjustment.
Is that fair?
Alden, remember: Treating your workers fairly — that’s good for business.
Reinvesting in your own newsroom — if you want it to stick around for a while —that’s good for business. It makes sense.
It makes sense if you step up, and take on the obligation and the reward of being a good corporate steward.
Read some definitions of that word “steward.” You know what word comes up a lot in those definitions?
Responsibility. As in: What an effective steward is responsible for.
We’re asking you to do the responsible thing for your workers. Think about what it means to refuse any kind of salary scale. Any annual raises. Any kind of cost-of-living adjustment — even as you threaten to eliminate our 401k retirement match, any annual raises, any kind of cost-of-living adjustment — even as you threaten to eliminate our 401k retirement match.
That’s a pay cut. On top of everything else.
When Alden took over in 2021, the Tribune had zero debt and about $250 million in cash.
Alden immediately clobbered us with $278 million in debt — money it borrowed to buy our asses.
Sorry, “assets.”
Alden’s papers, we’re told, work at something like 20 percent profit margins. That’s nearly double what the Tribune used to deliver just a few short years ago. And what the Tribune used to deliver was far above industry averages.
You know the real miracle? The Tribune still has a strong, beating journalism heart.
We’re doing some of the best work in the Tribune’s entire history. We’re covering people, and stories, we have ignored for too long. We are the Tribune’s writers. The photographers. The editors. The designers. The diggers.
We work hard for you because we believe in the mission. We would love to see tangible proof that you do, too.
The Tribune’s the biggest link in Alden’s newspaper chain, the second-largest newspaper chain in America. Your people work their assets off, in Denver. In Baltimore. In San Diego. Los Angeles. In Boston. In Hartford. In Orlando. In Allentown. And in so many more cities and towns, including Chicago, the home of the Chicago Tribune, your flagship paper, which plays a significant role in putting out so many other Alden papers.
If we don’t fight for a fair contract, for everything we do for you, then we have no right to tell the people of Chicago that we believe in their struggles, their stories. The value and the wonder of their lives.
It is time. Time to raise the minimum salaries for our lowest-paid colleagues. Rick Kogan is right. Shame is the word. We are ashamed by what some of our journalists make. Alden, you could raise that salary floor in a Long Island minute.
It is time to do something about Tribune newsroom pay inequities that are not fair in 2023, 2024 or ever. They never were.
On average Tribune journalists of color make $10,000 less than their white counterparts.
Women make $20,000 less than their male counterparts.
Alden, you can do the right thing. We need a contract that will pay your workers a little more to pay their bills.
I can’t say it any plainer, so I’ll end with something from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” because it’s practically a contractual obligation this time of year. And Tribune workers believe in the value of a fair contract.
In the movie, George Bailey, the soul of Bedford Falls generosity, faces economic ruin thanks to Mr. Potter, the embodiment of the loneliness of greed.
“This rabble you’re talking about,” George says. “They do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Is it too much to ask to have them work and pay and live and die, all in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?”
Alden, Chicago is where we work and pay and live and die. All of us — journalists my age, journalists half my age — we all deserve a fair contract.
Make it so. Do the right thing. And take on your currently imaginary but hopefully late-breaking role of the responsible, civic-minded steward who knows there’s a line just above the bottom line. And that line is written by how you treat your people.
Colleagues, friends, let’s take it on home.
In addition, I sought comment from Tribune reporter Madeline Buckley, head of the union’s negotiating team. She replied:
The Guild has been bargaining for 5 years. We absolutely want — and have been demanding for a long time — to come to a fair agreement with the company. The Guild's bargaining committee has proposed maintaining members' current benefits, in particular our 401K match, as well as annual cost-of-living raises, given years of stagnant wages for much of our membership.
Earlier this year, we made known to the company troubling wage gaps between male and female journalists and white journalists and journalists of color, and continue to demand that management address these inequities in a holistic way. We also want some guidelines around the use of Artificial Intelligence, and reasonable protections against outsourcing the important work of our journalists.
Among other things, the company has been digging in on its proposal that gives it the ability to cut our 401K match, as it already has for the Tribune's non-union staff — which amounts to a significant pay cut to members already acutely feeling the impact of inflation.
We look forward to being back at the bargaining table this week in the hopes of making progress, and we hope the company comes to the table in a similar spirit. We continue to fight for fair pay and working conditions that allow members to continue to produce impactful journalism, and greatly appreciate the community support we've received.
I have reached out to Tribune Publishing for comment too many times to count and have never gotten a response, so I no longer bother. They know how to reach me and have my assurance that I’ll print whatever they might have to say in response.
News & Views
News: Pope Francis approves the blessing of same-sex Catholic couples.
View: This is obviously a positive development, though it falls short of endorsing same-sex marriage or even blessing same-sex union ceremonies. I’ve never understood the obsession and concern that so many people of faith have with what consenting adults do in the bedroom. Nor, for that matter, have I understood why gay people would want to be part of an institution that considers their sexual activity to be depraved and “intrinsically disordered,” decrees that “under no circumstances can they be approved” and calls them to chastity.
I consider it always a good thing when people fall in love, have a joyous and consenting sexual relationship and commit to a future together. Their gender identity is of absolutely no concern to me, nor should be of concern to anyone else. Polls of the laity suggest they agree with me.
News: Old Town School of Folk Music President and CEO Jim Newcomb has announced he is stepping down.
View: Given my personal connections and interest in the school — notably “Songs of Good Cheer” — I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to offer a view one way or the other on this coming change at the top of a venerable Chicago arts organization.
The news release last Friday said, “The Board of Directors will launch a search for Mr. Newcomb’s replacement in January and he will remain in his role until a successor is identified.”
News: “Almost 80 percent of Americans, and 92 percent of Republicans, think crime has gone up. It actually fell in 2023.”
View: One reason for this is dishonest, fearmongering partisan media to be sure. But another is the ubiquity of video cameras that capture mayhem in progress, and yet another is the sorts of crimes we’re seeing — crash-and-grab shoplifting, armed robbery sprees in neighborhoods once thought safe, sometimes in daylight, and carjackings.
News: The Chicago City Council voted down the idea of an advisory referendum on the city’s sanctuary city status.
View: It’s always a bad look when elected officials exhibit fear of public opinion. The excuse for nixing this plebiscite is that the city’s sanctuary city status addresses immigrants in the country without legal documentation, and the recent hubbub that gave rise to the call for a vote has to do mostly with the influx of asylum-seekers, who are in the country legally. Therefore, the referendum would be divisive and potentially embarrassing as well as not being particularly relevant.
I further suspect that opponents of the referendum fear it would draw conservative voters to the polls, which might hamper the passage of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hike in the real estate transfer tax on high-end properties to generate revenue for addressing homelessness.
News: The Chicago City Council voted to reject the portion of the police contract that allows for hearings on the most serious allegations of police misconduct to be held behind closed doors.
View: This vote was a strong, important but almost certainly impotent expression of the importance of publicly airing the evidence and testimony in major police misconduct cases.
Strong and important because open, trial-like proceedings are key to building trust between the police and the communities they serve and generating broad confidence in the integrity of the disciplinary process.
Impotent because the Illinois Labor Relations Act clearly calls for private arbitration in such cases, and the city is very likely to lose this battle.
Here is from WBEZ reporter Chip Mitchell’s explainer:
For decades, the Chicago Police Board has made the city’s final decisions on the more serious discipline cases. The nine-member civilian panel holds trial-like hearings on charges from the police superintendent. The charges, the hearings and basic data about each case are open to the public. The board’s decisions and opinions are too. …
Arbitration differs from the Police Board process in a number of respects. Instead of a set panel of nine, a single arbitrator is assigned to each case. That arbitrator is chosen with agreement of the police union. … Like the Police Board, the arbitrator hears evidence and arguments from both sides and decides whether the officer is guilty and whether the punishment fits. The discipline cases that go to arbitration currently are less serious than those decided by the Police Board. … If the case goes to arbitration, the public gets no notice. The hearing is closed to the public — no matter the public interest in the case. The arbitrator’s decision and opinion are not posted publicly. A member of the public who finds out a case exists can file an open-records request, but many of the records will remain hidden. Any released material will include redactions of information as basic as the arbitrator’s name.
What’s needed here is a change in state law for cases involving police officers.
Haley’s comment, an update
The Illinois NAACP board unanimously backed its president, Teresa Haley, after her racist remarks surfaced in a recording of a Zoom conference call, remarks I wrote about last week.
“These immigrants have come over here, they’ve been raping people,” she said “They’ve been breaking into homes. They’re like savages as well. They don’t speak the language.”
Haley first tried to suggest that the video was a deep-fake generated by artificial intelligence. Then she issued a statement that began, “First and foremost, I express my sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or offended by my comments.”
An apology to “anyone who may have been offended” is so weak as not to deserve to be called an apology. It has a grudging quality that comes close to deflecting blame onto those who took offense.
Then came word that the national office of the NAACP had suspended Haley. The organization’s brief statement said that since the suspension was “an internal matter, there will be no additional comment at this time.”
The NAACP Illinois State Conference then issued two press releases, the first saying ,“President Teresa Haley will hold a Press Conference on Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. at the NAACP’s office” in Springfield. The second saying, “President Teresa Haley’s Press Conference is cancelled, in accordance with the recent request from the National NAACP Office. Ms. Haley stands by her heartfelt apology and will not provide any further comments at this juncture.”
Tip of the cap to PS reader Rick Weiland for “Haley’s comment.”
Land of Linkin’
The Harvard Gazette: “You bought an electric car. Why did your carbon footprint grow?” “Because the batteries that power EVs are responsible for an outsize share of emissions during the manufacturing process. … EVs are dirtier to build but cleaner to drive. … They must meet certain mileage thresholds before environmental advantages are realized. In the U.S., the typical non-luxury EV needs to log between 28,069 and 68,160 miles before netting any emissions benefits.”
Last-minute shoppers! How about a gift subscription to the Picayune Sentinel? Includes delivery of the Tuesday Picayune Plus edition, access to the vibrant commenting community and my gratitude.
“Chicago’s temporary casino is performing way below expectations.” A round-up of coverage at Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax. Maybe fortunes will turn starting next Wednesday when the facility at 600 N Wabash Ave. converts to 24-hour, 7-day operations. It is currently closed from 4 a.m. until 8 a.m.
“Dots Are The Worst Candy In The World,” by Brooke Hartnett at Thought Catalog: ”I don’t know a single person who eats and enjoys Dots unironically. If I were given the ability to make my worst enemy eat a single food for the rest of their life, I would make them eat Dots, because I’m a vengeful and opportunistic person and because Dots are that disgusting. They’re chewy in that horrible stick-to-your-teeth-for-the-rest-of-the-week way, and they’re the only gummy candy that actually tastes like they’re made out of horse hooves, even though they’re not.”
Unsettling: Preview of the world’s first AI-powered news network.
It’s interesting to more than a little terrifying how AI is learning to speak in nonrobotic tones and convincingly replicate real people. The faux anchors here have pauses and inflections that imitate human anchors, and the ability to translate stories into numerous languages will give this channel a potentially huge reach. The USA Today news story reports that the AI will also “generate its own reporting from public records and government documents.”
Don’t miss Mark Jacob’s list of more than 100 reasons to vote against Donald Trump.
Gee, President Joe Biden sounded very sharp in his interview this week with Conan O’Brien.
Squaring up the news
This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:
■ The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes—notably, a veteran conservative Milwaukee radio host—lists his Deplorables of the Year.
■ At AmericaFest, a celebration of far-right Christian nationalism and antisemitism ring-led by Arlington Heights-born reactionary Charlie Kirk — once dubbed “Kid Trump” (2018 link) — Roseanne Barr on Saturday delivered an “unhinged rant” about “Communists! With a huge helping of Nazi fascists thrown in! Plus one caliphate!”
■ Beloved (until now, anyway) children’s singer Raffi posted a swastika to his Instagram account.
■Donald Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, has served up “a list of all of Judge Engoron’s best burns” against Trump and his legal team in that New York fraud trial.
■ The conviction of Jonathan Majors — whose February interview with Stephen Colbert hasn’t aged well — has tossed Marvel Studios and its parent Walt Disney Co. into a casting crisis.
■ Xfinity’s notified customers that their “usernames and hashed passwords … contact information, last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret questions and answers” may have been stolen — so, yeah, it’s time to change passwords and switch to two-factor or multi-factor authentication.
■ Sadly for a lot of holiday bakers, Consumer Reports is amplifying its warning about the dangers of the popular BlendJet 2 portable blender — and it’s encouraging those who’ve had problems with the thing to report to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
■ Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik: The retail lobby has admitted that its most eye-catching and widely publicized statistic about organized shoplifting is a lie.
■ Rex Huppke: Holiday gift guides for men read like “toxic masculinity in list form.”
■ While some fans are celebrating Mayim Bialik’s separation from Jeopardy!, others are condemning as antisemitism Sony Pictures Television’s decision to let her go—even though Sony says it hopes “to continue to work with her on primetime specials.”
■ After teaching at Columbia College for 48 years, WXRT DJ Terri Hemmert’s delivered her “final final exam.”
■ Retired columnist Robert Feder has posted “Chicago Media in Memoriam — 2023.”
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
My way or the Skyway?
In Tuesday’s Picayune Plus, I reported on the coming hike in the Chicago Skyway toll from $6.60 to $7.20 for passenger cars.
(An aside: Tribune style decrees that such an increase be phrased “… to $7.20 from $6.60,” which just isn’t the way people think or speak, so nuts to that.)
I can’t find a definitive timeline of increases, but judging from news reports, it looks something like this:
1958 — $0.25 1962 — $0.30 1978 — $0.60 2002 — $2.00 2005 — $2.50 2008 — $3.00 2011 — $3.50 2013 — $4.00 2015 — $4.50 2017 — $5.00 2020 — $5.60 2021 — $5.90 2022 — $6.60 2024 — $7.20
The 7.8-mile Skyway, technically a toll bridge, is regularly listed as the most expensive road per mile in America. The city built it in the late 1950s to connect the end of the Indiana Toll Road to the interstates in Chicago, and it’s about 5 miles shorter than the longer, free expressways from the city into Northwest Indiana that I usually take when headed to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to visit my folks.
In 2004 ,Mayor Richard M. Daley leased the asset to private interests for 99 years in exchange for a $1.8 billion cash infusion. Since that time, inflation has hiked most prices by about 66% ,according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the investors in the Skyway have now hiked tolls by 380%
Is it worth taking the Skyway? It’s prettier and less scary than I-94, but $7.20? Almost a buck a mile? (The actual marginal cost of driving the extra five miles is about $1, and the time savings vary depending on traffic and construction, but is usually around 10 minutes according to my travel apps.)
I have posted a two-question online click survey aimed at those who regularly drive from the city into Indiana:
When driving from the Chicago area into Michigan or Central Indiana, do you usually take the Skyway or I-94?
How much time would it have to save you to choose the Skyway over the freeway (I-94)?
I took an identical survey in 2017. I’ll reveal and contrast the results next Thursday.
Mary Schmich’s favorite Christmas albums
My former Tribune colleague Mary Schmich posted this recently to Facebook:
Several people have asked recently what Christmas/holiday music I recommend for listening at home. Here are my top 4, the albums I listen to year after year.
“A Dave Brubeck Christmas” by Dave Brubeck. My favorite for many years.
“December” by George Winston. As mellow as it gets.
“Go Tell It on the Mountain” by The Blind Boys of Alabama. Great singing, great beat, rousing and moving.
“George Frederic Handel’s Messiah.” This version with Trevor Pinnnock is the one I’ve had for half my life and it still gives me chills.
Her readers offered their own suggestions in comments.
I would also once again direct readers to the web page for Mary’s Christmas song, “Gonna Sing.” It features lyrics, chords, sheet music, recordings, the back story and more. We have already heard from several people who have led it at their caroling parties to great effect.
Oak Parker to Chicagoans: ‘Stay’
In an essay posted Friday, Sun-Times “Next Voices” guest columnist Emily Dagostino wagged her finger at readers to stress the value of living in the city:
These days many people are leaving.
Let them go, I say, the ones who leave but could afford to stay.
To the rest of us: Stay.
Chicago remains what it was built to be: a center that draws people to work and live, agree and disagree, suffer and strive, to appreciate art and music and beauty, to feel something, question everything and imagine what’s possible.
It’s daring us to stick around and keep trying to be better.
Only in the italic shirttail of the column did chastened readers learn that she lives in suburban Oak Park. This fact was neatly omitted from the print edition of the column in Sunday’s paper.
Quotables
The right has an advantage in appealing to dislocated and atomized people: It doesn’t have to provide a compelling view of the future. All it needs is a romantic conception of the past, to which it can offer the false promise of return. When people are scared and full of despair, “let’s go back to the way things were” is a potent message, especially for those with memories of happier times. — Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times.
I’m not fat-shaming anyone, not even the hideously fat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. — John Kass
On Jan. 6, Trump thought it would help him to let police officers be violently attacked, so he did. He sat in the White House dining room and watched the attack on television, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave the Capitol. That’s depravity. — Liz Cheney
Trump, who was happy to push the lie that Obama wasn't a natural born citizen, which would have meant he wasn't qualified to be president and should be removed from ballots, doesn't seem to like the law nearly as much when it's applied to him. — Joyce Vance
The Electoral College is unfair to Democrats. But they lived with the outcomes in 2000 and 2016 because the EC is in the Constitution and there's a process for changing it. The 14th Amendment is in the Constitution too. Republicans need to accept it until they can change it. — Mark Jacob
The Affordable Care Act is more popular than ever, and Affordable Care Act coverage is more affordable than ever. More Americans have signed up for health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces than ever before. With nearly a month left in open enrollment, more than 19 million people have signed up for coverage, breaking all previous records. Enrollment has grown by more than 7 million people since I took office. — President Joe Biden
Re: Tweets
In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:
The new nominees for Tweet of the Week, holiday themed:
My son asked me, 'Why does Santa smoke a pipe when smoking is bad for you?' Since I believe every question is a teaching opportunity. I sat him down and told him, “Santa smokes because it looks cool.” — @CynicalTherapi1
Christmas is just a plot by big everything to sell you everything. — @wildethingy
Oh no. My girlfriend sold her hair to buy me a pocket watch chain, and I also bought myself a pocket watch chain. — @ErnieLies
Lady, believe me, if we had a two-horse open sleigh, I'd tell you. — @AnneHatfieldVO
"This is a nice manger and stable you've got here. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it." … The Three Wiseguys — @WilliamAder
Recreate the magic of “A Christmas Carol” for an elderly relative by waking them repeatedly to tell them where they’ve gone wrong in life. — @Dempster2000
“Jingle Horse” sounds like a slur racehorses use for sleigh horses. — @TheAndrewNadeau
Nine ladies dancing? You mean like a strip club? — @dmc1138
Excitedly told everyone for Christmas I got the Bog Witch to remove the curse on our family and instead of being happy they’re just like, “What curse?” and “Why do you keep angering bog witches?” Who cares? None of our kids will be born with hooves now. Just say thank you. — @TheAndrewNadeau
Best way to have the "Santa talk" with your kids is to gradually ease into it. First, tell them Santa is very sick. Then the next year, he died. Then when you tell them he was never real, it will come as a relief. — @oldfriend99
Vote here and check the current results in the poll. Also don’t forget to check out the top Christmas tweets of all time.
Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media.
For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.
Tune of the Week
We’ve led “Mary Had a Baby” several times over the years at “Songs of Good Cheer,” most recently in 2017 when Anna Jacobson fiddled and sang it.
The sound quality isn’t the best — I shot this video from my iPhone on stage at the Old Town School of Folk Music — but you’ll certainly catch the vibe of this fairly obscure African American Christmas spiritual, rendered by Anna with a Cajun lilt borrowed from Bruce Cockburn’s version.
The concluding line of the verse, “The people keep a comin’, but the train has gone,” may seem curious given that the Nativity story is set in antiquity. But a United Methodist Church history of the song explains:
The metaphor of the train, a newer nineteenth-century development in transportation, is common in spirituals, most likely as an eschatological reference or, perhaps, a veiled reference to the underground railroad.
The history goes on to quote folklorist Natalie Curtis-Burlin (1875–1921):
To the unlettered Black man, the first railroad was as great a wonder as the Bible miracle, and it offered the slave poet many a poetic symbol. To “get on board” the Gospel Train which runs on the rails made by “heavenly truth” meant to find religion, and in this song, the connection of ideas would seem to imply an urging of humanity to the birthplace of “Mary’s Baby King Jesus” lest the train of salvation leave before the arrival of those tardy ones who “keep a’comin though the train done gone.”
The question-and-answer format of the verses gives the song a “catechetical structure,” the song history notes:
Where did she lay him?... Laid him in a manger ... What did he name him? ... She named him King Jesus... Who heard the singing?... Shepherds heard the singing...
Merry Christmas!
Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!
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Just want to say thanks and happy holidays to the folks who join in this uncommonly reasonable, thoughtful and often uplifting forum, the only online place I trust to kick around matters both trivial and crucial. And of course thanks to our Stackmaster Eric for making it happen and keeping it entertaining every week. Peace.
Man, union rallies by writers have much better speeches than other unions. I do hope they can get what they deserve from the private equity idiots. I'd like to have a reason to get the Trib, but I just can't get myself to do it with that ownership and their well-documented (by you) bait-and-switch subscription charges. I do my best to support local news with both Block Club and Sun Times subscriptions.