Some happy returns
A look at the results of Tuesday's primary races in Illinois, funeral thoughts and more
3-19-2026
This week:
News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked
The Tweet 16 matchups in the written jokes bracket tournament
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
Media notes — Two radio notables have died
Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages and images I’ve encountered lately
Good Sports — A vote for “Blackout Wednesday” games
Green Light — For the 2026 equivalent of ABC’s “Nightline” in 1979
Decision ’26
A few thoughts on the results of Tuesday’s primary
I’m neither surprised nor particularly disappointed that Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, though I voted for third-place finisher Robin Kelly. I was and am of the belief that any of the Democratic candidates would have been reliable supporters of Good Things in Washington, and opponents of Bad Things. Stratton has admirable passion — I was among the minority of those who appreciated her “fuck Trump!” commercial — and high, though unrealistic, expectations about what she can accomplish if, as expected, she is elected in November. I’ll vote for her with enthusiasm, though I do dread the prospect of hearing people say her name “Schtratton” for at least six years.
We haven’t seen the last of Kat Abughazaleh. The 26-year-old influencer parachuted into our area from Washington, D.C., in July 2024, and in March of last year, she announced she would challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Evanston, even though she didn’t even live in the district at the time. This led cynics — OK, me — to give her the nickname “Carpetbaghazaleh.” But her odds of success improved when Schakowsky announced last May that she would not seek reelection. Abughazaleh showed fire and eloquence on the stump as well as an impressive ability to raise funds from progressives nationwide. She finished a strong second in a crowded field Tuesday to Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, and if she stays rooted in Illinois, I look for her to seek another office soon.
Biss beat a crowded field with 29% of the vote. LaShawn Ford won the Democratic nomination for the South and West Side 7th U.S. Congressional District with just 24% of the vote. Democrat Melissa Bean won in the northwest suburban 8th District with 32% of the vote. When more than two-thirds of voters don’t support the winner, there should be a runoff. But since those are costly to administer, ranked choice voting would help choose the candidate most acceptable to most voters.
I was glad to see voters reject Melissa Conyears-Ervin, Jesse Jackson Jr., Samantha Steele and Jaime M. Andrade Jr. Conyears-Ervin, the city treasurer who was making a bid for Congress, is gravely ethically challenged. Jackson Jr. went to prison for using campaign funds to pay for such personal expenses as “jewelry, fur capes and parkas, high-end electronics, celebrity memorabilia, furniture, kitchen appliances, and a home renovation project.” Steele behaved with abominable arrogance during a 2024 DUI arrest. And Andrade, who happens to be my state representative, engaged in disgustingly false campaigning when he claimed his Democratic opponent was actually a supporter of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Elon Musk.
However, I was not glad to see this: “State Sen. Emil Jones III won the Democratic nomination for his Senate seat, staving off two challengers who ran against him after he faced federal corruption charges that ended in a mistrial before he agreed to admit to wrongdoing to avoid jail time. With 89% of the estimated vote, Jones, of Chicago, was leading with 60.7%”
Good luck to Pat Hynes in the thankless job of Cook County assessor. Hynes —nephew of Tom Hynes, Cook County assessor from 1978 to 1997, and cousin of Dan Hynes, Illinois state comptroller from 1999 to 2011 — beat two-term incumbent assessor Fritz Kaegi for the Democratic nomination, which makes him a shoo-in to win the office in November. No matter how you do that job, you’re going to piss off a lot of people and unfairly bear the brunt of their anger over rising property taxes.
It’s hard to imagine big donors stepping up to help Republican gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey in his second challenge to incumbent Democrat JB Pritzker. Pritzker walloped Bailey four years ago, and the Republican Party in Illinois has only gotten weaker since then. Pritzker will have to fend off the plausible accusation that he’s going to be a part-time governor at best for a few years because he’s planning a run for president in 2028.
Bye, Dad
We laid my father to rest Saturday at the top of a hill in an Ann Arbor cemetery. I use that expression even though I don’t buy into the idea that the deceased are “resting” or somehow discomfited before their remains are stowed away for eternity.
Jens Zorn died on Jan. 5 at age 94 — I wrote about that at length here — and was cremated several days later. He lives on in our hearts and in the attributes of his survivors, but otherwise, he is no more. I believe I will never see him or talk to him again, though I certainly understand why so many people have that faith when it comes to their own departed loved ones.
Ironically, perhaps, that sentiment is very strong in the music my father loved the best — old country gospel. Many of the songs he and his friends used to sing, and that he and I sang during my frequent visits, speak of life as an often hard journey with a joyous reunion in heaven at the end.
I led the singing of one of those songs — “Shall We Gather at the River?” — to conclude his celebration of life Saturday morning.
Soon we’ll reach the shining river, Soon our pilgrimage will cease. Soon our happy hearts will quiver With the melody of peace.
The river being the Jordan River that symbolizes the divide between life and death. I chose that song because, in that same room in the Michigan Union 40 year earlier, my father had mentioned it in his eulogy for Bill Williams, a physics department colleague and singing partner who died in a private plane crash at age 49.
“Shall We Gather at the River?” he asked. “Yes, but we never thought it would start this soon.”
We proceeded to scatter some of dad’s ashes at the bases of several of his sculptures that are installed in a courtyard next to the physics building on campus. Then we went to the cemetery where I pulled out my guitar and led a small group around the grave in singing four old gospel songs, “Over in the Glory Land,” “I’ll Fly Away,” “The Land Where We’ll Never Grow Old” and, finally, the song his group always closed with and he and I always closed with: “God Be With You ’Til We Meet Again.”
I sang it through tears, my grief accentuated by the certainty that, this time, we will never meet again, but alleviated by the comforting memories of how long and well he lived.
The YouTube slide show of his life with a soundtrack of old recordings of him and his friends playing together that showed before the speeches at the celebration of life is posted here.
News & Views
News: The Chicago Teachers Union wants CPS to grant middle school and high school students a day off on May 1 to protest for more school funding.
View: Taking a day off school to mount a protest showing how important school is to you is going to send a mixed message, at best. The Chicago Teachers Union is behind this initiative, which is designed to pressure lawmakers into finding ways to levy higher taxes on the well-to-do in order to provide more money for public education.
But a sanctioned protest requiring no sacrifice isn’t particularly dramatic or persuasive. The CTU wants an official OK from Chicago Public Schools so no student or teacher is marked absent, and the union simply proposes substituting May 1 for an already scheduled “day of no attendance” later in the calendar, so no classroom time will be missed.
There are plenty of weekdays to march and rally — students are off all next week for spring break, in fact — and Saturdays and Sundays are available for protesting. The next “No Kings” demonstrations on Saturday, March 28 come to mind.
From a Tribune editorial:
The union participated in a similar day of action last year, but this year the resolution explicitly calls for “No Work, No School and No Shopping.” Many Chicagoans will recall a similar disruption in 2024, when CPS gave its “CTU partners” a weekday off — paid — so hundreds of teachers could travel to Springfield to lobby for more funding.
The resolution details plans for the day including “engaging our students, their families and our neighbors,” leading voter registration drives and “know your rights” trainings, and conducting “mass resistance training from the beginning to the end of the day.” The resolution continues, taking aim at everything from billionaires to the war in Iran to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
While I support many of these general aims, I see this initiative as feckless and potentially counterproductive. In an unscientific click survey, 89% of more than 300 respondents to a WGN-AM poll checked “Bad idea. The union is getting too political.”
News: City Council votes to freeze the minimum wage for tipped workers at 76% of minimum wage rather than let it continue rising to 100% as previously scheduled.
View: I’m for a robust minimum wage and for a strict enforcement of the law that requires restaurant owners to be sure that tipped staff always receive at least the minimum wage, no matter how slow customer traffic is or how stingy the patrons are. But restaurateurs have been telling alders that ramping all the way up will kill businesses and jobs. From the Sun-Times:
Restaurants fighting for survival have joined the campaign (against further raises) armed with surveys that underscore what they claim is an urgent need for economic relief for an industry that has not fully recovered from the pandemic. Those surveys show that nearly 500 Chicago restaurants closed during the first half of 2025, and that the total workforce at the city’s full-service restaurants remains 7,800 jobs below pre-pandemic levels. Customers also are paying higher prices for reduced service. Nearly 90% of restaurants surveyed say they’ve raised menu prices, while 72% have cut staff and 79% have reduced employee hours.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is likely to veto the measure that passed Wednesday by a vote of 30-18, took yet another opportunity to play the race and gender cards:
Johnson called Wednesday’s vote “shameful” and said he was not about to “stand idly by and watch Black and Brown women suffer at the hands of corporate interests.” He added, “If I’ve got to veto something to make sure that Black and Brown women are protected, then veto it is. ... The entire world is calling for affordability and raising wages, and this City Council just took raises away from Black and Brown women.”
But not setting a lower tipped minimum wage is likely to cause people of all colors and gender identities to lose jobs, jobs at which many of them now already make more than the minimum wage.
The Tweet 16
We’re now down to the final eight brackets in my annual Quip Madness tournament — the Tweet 16 as I’ve branded this round — and here are the contestants. Click here to vote for your favorites.
I got fired from my job because I kept asking my customers whether they would prefer “Smoking” or “Non-smoking.” Apparently, the correct terms are “cremation” and “burial.” — @ThePunnyWorld
vs.
Every year for as long as I can remember, I received a Valentine’s card from a secret admirer, and I was disappointed that I didn’t get one this year. First my grandma dies, and now this. — @MissAlly_01
I’m not saying I’m old, but we made ashtrays for our parents in art class. —@__Kimberly1
vs.
If you lose your khakis in Ohio it means you can’t find your pants, but if you lose your khakis in Boston it means you can’t start your car. — unknown
What did our parents do to kill boredom before the internet? I asked my 10 brothers and sisters and they didn’t know either. — unknown
vs.
Yesterday my internet was down. I noticed a woman sitting on the sofa in the family room. I spoke to her for a while and she seemed very nice. — @WillieHandler
The wage gap isn’t real. Men just tend to go for higher paying jobs, like doctor, engineer and CEO. Whereas women go for lower paying jobs like female doctor, female engineer and female CEO — unknown
vs.
My wife: You need to do more chores around the house. Me: Can we please change the subject? My wife: OK. More chores around the house need to be done by you. — @ThePunnyWorld
My wife texted me a selfie in a new dress and asked, “Does this make my butt look big?” I texted back “Nooooo!” My phone autocorrected my response to “Mooooo!” Please send help. — @mariana057
vs.
How to tell you’ve had a successful business meeting: 1) You ate free food. 2) You said one thing that was confusing enough to sound intelligent. 3) You left with no assigned action items. — @wheeltod.bsky.social
Operation Rough Rider, Operation Midnight Hammer. Operation Southern Spear. Why are all of Pete Hegseth’s military operations named after brands of dildos? — @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social
vs.
Are we there yet? I’m hungry. How much further? I need the toilet. Do you want to play I Spy? Can I smell the frankincense again? I’m really tired. Shall I sing another song? Are we nearly there yet? … The Fourth Wise Man whose body was never found. — @TheWriterType
Dance like no one is watching. Because they aren’t. They’re looking at their phones. — @jackboot.bsky.social
vs.
I would have renamed the Gulf of Mexico “Sea Señor.” — @BobGolen
I have more photos of my dog trying on his snow boots than my parents have of my entire childhood. — @CooperLawrence
vs.
Next time you get a call from an unknown number, answer it by whispering, “It’s done. But there’s blood everywhere.” — @deelomas.bsky.social
Again, Click here to vote for your favorites.
You gotta see these!
Here is the next round of heats in the visual jokes tournament. Each image was a winner or in a tie for first over the past year. The winner of each heat will advance to the next round.
HEAT SIX
HEAT SEVEN
HEAT EIGHT
HEAT NINE
HEAT 10
You can still cast votes in the first five heats, which were posted Tuesday. In next Tuesday’s Picayune Plus, the winners will again face off. One shining moment approaches.
Land of Linkin’
No one goes down rabbit holes more elegantly than the Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg. Here he is, writing in his blog on a windy day, examining all aspects of the word “wind.”
Google reveals artist renderings of its new downtown headquarters, which will keep the name Thompson Center.
A staggeringly low percentage of my readers are offering support for the “sweetheart table” at wedding reception dinners.
Who got snubbed in Oscar’s “In Memoriam” segment? Variety weighs in.
“Saturday Night Live” videos from last Saturday that are well worth your time:
A short film imagining if crackpot Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in charge of the emergency room in HBO’s “The Pitt.” “I’m going outside to sun my taint” is one of the best lines ever written.
Chicago Magazine dishes about the 13 best new city restaurants: Creepies, Atsumeru, Nadu, Cafe Yaya, Petite Edith, Omakase Box, Mahari, Noodles Party, Crying Tiger, Zarella Pizzeria & Taverna, Nine Garden, Pizz’amici and Sho.
“As the president’s immigration policies squeeze an already tight supply of farm labor, the Trump administration is making it cheaper to hire foreign farmworkers” (New York Times gift link).
The Guardian: “Trump’s DHS pick, Markwayne Mullin, never served in military but talks as if he did.”
RFK Jr. released this bizarre HHS AI-generated video of him wrestling an anthropomorphic Twinkie.
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:
■ Newsweek: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent $12 million losing Illinois primaries.
■ Veteran political consultant Dave Lundy is grateful it’s over: “I’ve never seen an uglier, more personal, more nasty primary season than this.”
■ “Maybe, just possibly, Trump pulled the whole thing out of his ass.” The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper turns a skeptical eye toward the president’s claim that a former U.S. president said he regretted not doing what Trump’s done in Iran.
■ Popular Information: The 23-year-old college student named the new political director for the College Republicans of America is a champion of white supremacy who’s posted to social media that Jewish people are “delusional cosplayers” and most pedophiles are gay men.
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
And speaking of Chicago Public Square, Meyerson on Tuesday posted about the friendly disagreement he and I have about Substack vs. Mailchimp as platforms for email newsletters like the PS and CPS.
Media notes
Sun-Times headline desk for the win
TV Insider: ‘Tony Dokoupil Disaster as ‘CBS Evening News’ Ratings Plummet’
CBS Evening News averaged 3.83 million viewers for the week of March 9. This is the first time the show has dropped below 4 million since Dokoupil took over from Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson on January 5. …
Compared to its rival evening news shows, ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir averaged 8.48 million total viewers … Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas averaged 6.51 million total viewers.
The Tribune’s Rick Kogan: ‘For 40 years, Newcity has been delivering the city’s cultural scene.’ (gift link)
Via Chicago Public Square
■ Longtime WGN agriculture reporter Orion Samuelson is dead at 91.
■ Founding anchor at Chicago’s all-news WBBM John Hultman’s passed at 89.
■ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin celebrates word that billionaire media entrepreneur Robert Albritton is bankrolling “the next great Washington newsroom” — to challenge the gutted Washington Post.
Quotables
A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Proverbs 6 16-19: There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
Neil Steinberg — My viva la revolutión pals … are so lost in lefty dogma they miss subtle differences, like one president trying to give millions of Americans health insurance and another trying to pluck them off the street and deport them because their papers aren’t in order.
Devon Clement — Listen to me. Do not get flowers as a gift for people who just had a baby, OK? Do not do it. You are not giving them beauty, you are giving them chores. And what’s going to happen is, they’re not going to be able to refresh the water and the flowers are going to get gross. And then they’re going to be sad about it because you got them these beautiful flowers that have turned gross. … Get them a food-delivery gift card. Spend the same amount of money. A food-delivery gift card will be much more appreciated.
Donald Trump — My uncle was the longest serving professor … at MIT … 41 years. (fact check: false). … That means I have much better blood.
Wilde Thingy — Instead of moaning that things aren’t as good as they used to be, celebrate how amazing right now is compared to the shit show we’ll be experiencing very soon.
Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, in announcing his resignation Tuesday — Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times — One of Trump’s innovations was to dispatch with all shame, reveling in the energy born of smashing taboos. … It shouldn’t be surprising that young conservatives, raised in a movement that celebrates cruel provocations, don’t see antisemitism as off limits.
Christian nationalist podcaster Joshua Haymes — The institution of slavery is not inherently evil. … It is not inherently evil to own another human being. … Every Christian in today’s society should be able to defend what I just said.
Betty Bowers — Odd how Trump criticizes NATO allies for not wanting to get involved in his stupid war, but doesn't criticize Vladimir Putin for using Donald's stupid war as an excuse to help Iran kill American troops.
Simon Maechling —Before science, humans had very little freedom because nature decided everything: If crops failed → famine. If you got an infection → death. If winters were harsh → starvation. If a child was born → high risk of dying. Science changed that. Vaccines → freedom from many diseases Fertilizers → freedom from constant famine. Electricity → freedom from darkness and cold. Antibiotics → freedom from deadly infections. Science doesn’t just produce knowledge. It removes the constraints that used to control human life. And when constraints disappear, people gain freedom. Science is the technology of human freedom.
Jimmy Kimmel — The only war Trump had an exit plan for was Vietnam.
Associated Press — Obtaining the necessary documents under the SAVE Act is not as easy as it might sound. A similar effort was tried in Kansas a decade ago and turned into a debacle that eventually was blocked by the courts after more than 30,000 eligible citizens were prevented from registering. … People whose birth certificates don’t match their current IDs — mostly women who changed their names when they married — would likely need additional documentation to register to vote under the bill. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found about 80% of women in opposite-sex marriages in the U.S. take their husband’s last name.
U.S. Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett — If (the war) were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we’d have to think about, if that continued, what we’d have to do about that, but that’s really the last of our concerns right now.
Jonathan Zimmerman, emeritus professor at New York University (gift link) — It appalls me that student graduation speakers now have to submit their remarks for approval from their universities. … If you’re afraid to let students speak in person at your graduations, such as New York University is, you have lost your moral and intellectual spine. Period.
Donald Trump — Good things are happening to Venezuela lately! I wonder what this magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?
Donald Trump — All of the people that died through the roadside bombs … are, right now, walking around with no legs.
Jake Vig — It's days like this that I almost wish a madman wasn't single-handedly causing so much suffering all over the world because no one will stand up to him.
Minced Words
Brandon Pope, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. Among other topics, we chatted about the primary election results, the proposed one-day strike by Chicago public school students and their teachers, the war against Iran and the coverage thereof.
Traffic lights:
John — A yellow light for “Everybody Loses: “The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling” by Danny Funt (grandson of Allen Funt (1914–1999), host and creator of “Candid Camera,” which aired off and on from 1948 to 1968.
Marj — A green light for the 2024 Oscar-nominated short film “Jane Austen’s Period Drama,” a 12-minute comedy about, well, I won’t give it away.
Brandon — A green light for “Sentimental Value,” a Norwegian movie that won this year’s Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Pay-per-view on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, YouTube and other platforms.
Eric — A green light for “Meet the Press NOW.” See below.
Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720 look for the YouTube version that will be posted later in the week.
Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.
Good Sports
I’m in for a ‘Blackout Wednesday’ NFL game
My esteemed former colleague Paul Sullivan, sports columnist at the Tribune, takes issue with the possibility that the NFL will schedule games on the day before Thanksgiving as well as on Thanksgiving Day itself.
Blackout Wednesday is the time-honored day before Thanksgiving on which college students return home and binge drink with their old friends from high school. It has been a tradition since the 1970s at least.
I somehow missed out on this tradition, but drinking to excess and watching football are plainly not mutually exclusive activities.
Naturally, the NFL will be referring to it as “Thanksgiving Eve” to be politically correct.
“As Commissioner (Roger) Goodell has said, Thanksgiving and NFL football have become synonymous, and given the continued growth of fan interest around our games on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, looking for additional opportunities tied to this special holiday is exciting for us to explore,” the league said in a statement. … (But) the NFL doesn’t need another day to televise games, and Gen Z college kids deserve the right to embellish their college careers without football as a distraction.
The more football on TV the better, I say. What say you?
No wonder Ohio State beat Michigan in November
The Tribune’s Brad Biggs has five Buckeyes in the first 11 picks in his projection for the first round of the NFL draft (gift link), and a sixth at No. 28. Not a single Wolverine made that list.
Green Light
Green Light features recommendations from me and readers not only of songs — as in the former Tune of the Week post — but also of TV shows, streaming movies, books, podcasts and other diversions that, with only rare exceptions, can be enjoyed at home.
I’ve recently become a fan of and listener to “Meet the Press NOW,” a weekday spinoff of NBC’s Sunday morning political talk show. The hourlong show began as “Meet the Press Daily” on MSNBC in 2015 and has been streaming on the NBC News NOW platform at 3 p.m. Central since June 2022. It provides succinct, balanced updates on the war against Iran (I mean “the excursion”) that remind me of the must-watch Iranian hostage crisis updates on ABC News’ “Nightline” program more than 45 years ago.
Host Kristen Welker interviews academics, government officials and reporters on the ground about the latest developments in the Middle East. The audio podcast, which I prefer, usually posts around 5 p.m. Chicago time, perfect for commuting, making dinner, cleaning up after dinner and so on.
Here’s yesterday’s episode:
Illinois Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Juliana Stratton makes an appearance.
Info
I am a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. I began publishing the Picayune Sentinel on Sept. 9, 2021, roughly two and a half months after I took a buyout from the newspaper. 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. Browse and search back issues here.
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Thanks for reading!
Thank you for sharing the beautiful video tribute to your father and the meaningful way in which you and your family memorialized him. He must have been a wonderful father. You must have been a wonderful son. Who can ask for more?
Nixon had his Madman Theory, which posed a dilemma for hostile countries because they never knew how he might respond to a threat, perhaps even use nuclear weapons. Trump has a Stupid Man theory, which doesn't work as well, because hostile countries, not knowing what he might do, do know it will be the stupidest thing possible, such as bombing Iran, setting the Middle East on fire, and ruining the US economy without having thought of what to do when the Iranians close the Strait of Hormuz and then begging erstwhile friendly countries to bail him out of the mess he has created. Only Stupid Man would think they would respond with anything but a heartfelt "Hell, no!"