Whew!

Tuesday's election results offered much needed relief for those worried about the future of democracy

11-6-2025*

This week:

• Last week’s winning quip

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked

• That’s so Brandon! — Updates on the misadventures of Chicago’s maladroit mayor

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• Media notes — Retirements and deaths; some good news for Tribune subscribers

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• Wrong answers only — “Jeopardy” asked which topical skin product Mary Schmich touted in a 1997 column, and here are some deliberately errant guesses

• Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists

• A partial list of the lies Donald Trump told in just one interview

• Cheer Chat — We are preparing to present the most nakedly materialistic song from our most nakedly materialistic season

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week

• Green Light — “Tobacco’s But an Indian Weed,” a public service announcement from the 1690s

*I no longer see the point in numbering these issues as though this were some academic journal. This is PS No. 217, but No. 425 if you count the unnumbered issues of the Picayune Plus. From now on, I will simply note the start date of this publication in the “Info” section at the bottom.

Exhale!

Certain court decisions adverse to the authoritarian aims of the Trump regime and sagging approval for the president, reflected in polling and massive street demonstrations challenging Trump’s agenda, have provided glimmers of hope that the American experiment is not reaching its end. Many of us had been holding our breath since January, until Tuesday’s Democratic rout in elections across the country let us breathe a sigh of what feels like relief.

Majorities of the voting public aren’t buying what Trump and the Republicans are now selling. The flabbergast and fury are widespread. It turns out that gratuitously brutalizing immigrants, rewarding the already wealthy with huge tax breaks, denigrating all who are considered The Other, allowing the costs of health care to skyrocket, using the law to go after your political enemies, killing suspected drug runners without due process and brazenly gaslighting us on virtually every topic aren’t the successful political strategy MAGA thought.

You’ve seen all the results already. You know that off-year elections are just snapshots in time and that external events can quickly change the mood of voters. There’s one year and one day until the Nov. 7, 2026, midterm election, but that time will now seem to go a little faster.

Last week’s winning quip

“Wow! Awesome costume!” “Step out of the vehicle, sir.” — @BobGolen

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-jokes poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

News & Views

News: The Department of Homeland Security says the employee wrestled out of Northwest Side daycare center Wednesday morning is to blame for the troubling images of her arrest.

View: Again I will say that DHS has almost no credibility with me. Over and over, their self-serving accounts of confrontations on the streets of the city have been contradicted by citizen video — for example, their claim that Dayanne Figueroa, an American citizen, hit their vehicle when we can clearly see the opposite is true.

So I’m inclined to believe that federal agents once again acted with unnecessary brutality in entering the Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center where Diana Patricia Santillana Galeano, a Colombian national who works there, had sought sanctuary after ICE tried to pull over the vehicle she was riding in. Agents wrestled her outside and reportedly then searched the school.

Galeano reportedly has a work authorization permit based on her pending asylum case. Whether or not that is or should be sufficient to allow her to stay in the country is debatable, but it’s undeniable that she’s not among “the worst of the worst” criminals whom Operation Midway Blitz is ostensibly aimed at ousting from the country. And it was certainly gratuitously ugly of ICE to traumatize children and families in the school with performative thuggery when she fled.

If ICE has run out of undocumented felons in the Chicago area to round up and is reduced to snatching up daycare workers, then it should get the fuck outta town and find another city to terrorize.

News: Democratic U.S. Rep. Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia of Chicago pulls a fast one in order to let his chief of staff inherit his seat.

View: Reputationally, “Chuy” went blooey Monday when we learned just after the deadline for candidates to file their nominating petitions that he’d quietly decided to retire from Congress, even as his chief of staff was gathering signatures to be on the March 17 primary ballot. This will leave voters in the state’s heavily Democratic 4th Congressional District with no viable alternatives to Patty Garcia (no relation to the congressman).

In an interview with Rich Miller of Capitol Fax, Rep. Garcia said that a week before the filing deadline, after he’d submitted his nominating petitions, his cardiologist told him he should “consider doing something else than being a member of Congress.”

He said the next day, his wife, who lives with multiple sclerosis, asked him not to run, after which he “spent a couple of sleepless nights trying to figure out what to do.”

And gosh, it wasn’t until Friday, the day he and his wife formally adopted an 8-year-old grandson, “when I thought that we could try to get my chief, Patty Garcia, on the ballot.”

Petition passers went out Saturday and were able to file by Monday’s deadline.

Do I believe health and family considerations prompted Rep. Garcia to retire? I do.

Do I believe that this is the actual timeline of his thinking? I do not.

It was a hack move for him to fail to announce his retirement to the public until after the filing deadline, when it was too late for a serious challenger to enter the primary race (though Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, says he’s exploring a run as an independent in the general election).

And it was beyond disappointing given Garcia’s image as progressive, good government reformer. He now belongs in the rogues’ gallery of sketchy local pols who have thwarted democracy by coronating their successors though various slippery means. The gallery posted by the Sun-Times includes:

• William Lipinski

• Emil Jones Jr.

• Richard Mell

• Edward Vrdolyak

• Anthony Laurino

• John Stroger

• William Beavers

The Tribune had a strong lead editorial Wednesday headlined, “A sleazy end to Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia’s long political career.”

Garcia may well admire and be grateful to his chief of staff and, of course, he would have been free to endorse her. But rigging the system so she cannot lose doesn’t ennoble either of the two public servants here. … Now, part of his legacy will be the way he’s exiting the political stage — handing his congressional seat to a loyal staffer and disrespecting his own voters by denying them a choice of who their next U.S. House member should be.

Commenters to Miller’s blog noted that Illinois could go a long way toward preventing this particular shenanigan by copying Nebraska’s law requiring incumbents to file petitions for reelection roughly two weeks before the filing deadline for challengers. A similar law in Oregon gives challengers an extra week to file. Either would have given potential serious challengers to Patty Garcia a chance to get in the race.

News: New York City elected a mayor who excited voters with unrealistic promises.

View: So what else is new? Candidates always overpromise and nearly always underdeliver. If newly elected Zohran Mamdani fails to bring about universal free child care, free city bus service and a rent freeze, he will hardly be the first pol to sweet-talk his way into office. The real test will be if by next summer, New Yorkers feel that he’s working collaboratively, productively and transparently with his department heads and other elected officials to improve life in the city.

It’s a test that Chicago’s ambitious, overpromising Mayor Brandon Johnson has so far failed.

News: Jurors in the sandwich attack trial went home Wednesday night without reaching a verdict.

View: I refuse to take seriously the effort by the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute a man for throwing a submarine sandwich in protest into the bulletproof vest of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in Washington, D.C., in August. The DOJ is run with a heavy hand by President Donald Trump, who earlier this year issued pardons to all of those who brutally attacked Capitol Police officers with actual weapons on Jan. 6, 2021.

The “victim” told jurors that the sandwich “exploded” when it hit him in the chest and “you could smell the onions and the mustard.”

I don’t condone throwing food as a form of protest, nor do I condone the rank, thuggish partisan hypocrisy involved in mounting a full-on trial for what is, at worst, a misdemeanor offense.

That’s So Brandon!

The Tribune’s Jake Sheridan reported:

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s arts and culture leader resigned amid an investigation into allegations that she harassed staffers, records obtained by the Tribune show.

The (Oct. 7) exit of Clinée Hedspeth, commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, came days after Johnson’s chief of staff received a human resources investigation determining Hedspeth violated ethnic, age-based and sexual harassment rules.

Yes, but Hedspeth has long been an obvious disaster. Consider these headlines:

• Sept. 9, 2024: “Turnover roils Chicago’s cultural affairs department under new commissioner”

• Feb. 6, 2025: “Cultural commissioner criticized for leaving ‘void,’ faces bullying allegations”

• April 10, 2025: “Chicago artists say in letter that ‘dysfunction’ in city cultural department causing grant delays”

• April 22, 2025: “Chicago’s cultural affairs department hits crisis point”

With all this manifest turmoil and dysfunction, it evidently took “a human resources investigation determining Hedspeth violated ethnic, age-based and sexual harassment rules” for Johnson to effectively force her resignation.

She is “a close friend of Johnson’s … who worked as his legislative director when he was a county commissioner,” according to Sheridan’s report. This would seem to explain the unpardonable delay in acknowledging that her appointment was a disaster.

Land of Linkin’

• Wired: “DOGE Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting With (tax-software) Lobbyists.”

• Start reading at the bottom of Page 7 the excerpts from the book “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success” and from several New York Times articles that have prompted Trump to file a defamation suit. Would love to see him deposed under oath on these accusations, but it will never happen.

• The Guardian: “A top FBI official with 27 years standing has reportedly been fired by the bureau after its director, Kash Patel, became enraged by press stories revealing he had used a government jet to travel to see his girlfriend sing the national anthem at a wrestling match.”

• Stop the Presses pundit Mark Jacob: “12 helpful terms to understand American chaos.”

• Steve Chapman: “No, Ronald Reagan did not love tariffs.” (gift link) “But this is the least of the differences between the two presidents. Here are a few things Trump has done that Reagan didn’t: order the Justice Department to go after his political enemies; try to overturn an election and issue mass pardons to violent felons who helped him; order murderous attacks on boats allegedly carrying illegal drugs; send the military into U.S. cities to support deportation efforts; and publicly entertain the idea of an unconstitutional third term. ... Reagan was a leader of dignity and good humor who treated his political opponents as fellow Americans.”

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:

■ “Labor Department dreams of an Aryan America” — Neil Steinberg sees a pattern in Trump administration imagery.

■ 404 Media: Customs and Border Protection has given state and local cops an app they can use to scan someone’s face as part of immigration enforcement. Also, how to opt out of airlines selling your travel data to the government.

■ “Dilbert” creator—and Trump supporter—Scott Adams had health insurance problems. Then he asked Trump for help.

■ Calm? Calm?? CALM??? Your Chicago Public Square columnist mounts the soapbox to complain about NBC News’ new slogan.

■ “The quantity of AI-generated articles has surpassed the quantity of human-written articles being published on the web.” That was just one of the points cited as University of Illinois Chicago journalism lecturer Mike Reilley gave Square readers an overview of artificial technology and fact-check tech. You can see the full two-hour session here and check out Reilley’s link-rich digital handout here.

■ “R.I.P.: ‘60 Minutes.’” Lawyer/columnist Robert Hubbell, who watched Sunday’s interview with Trump so you don’t have to, says it marked “the moment when mourners shoveled earth laden with equal parts sorrow, disgrace, and surrender into the grave of a once proud institution.”

■ Cord-Cutter Confidential columnist Jared Newman: “Things are about to get messy for free, over-the-air TV.”

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Media notes

WGN-AM 720 news anchor Steve Bertrand will retire a week from today after more than 40 years at the station.

Bertrand, 62, whose many credits include being an original member of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast panel, is a smooth and insightful observer of the scene, and I hope we can talk him into coming back on the podcast now that participating no longer conflicts with his responsibilities in the newsroom.

Kudos for him:

From joining WGN Radio in 1985 during the Wally Phillips era to anchoring news on the Lisa Dent Show today, throughout his 40 eventful years here Steve has faithfully maintained the highest standards of journalistic integrity, combined with his own unique gift for playful on air banter which is sure to be missed by colleagues and listeners alike. — WGN Radio general manager Mary Sandberg Boyle

Boy are we gonna miss him. He has been the stable, warm and wise voice for Chicago radio for so many years. If he’ll no longer talk on our shows, I hope he’ll call in. Chicago needs more Steve Bertrands. — WGN midday host John Williams

Bertrand himself issued a statement:

I feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the history of radio. As a kid, I dreamed of one day living in Chicago. I never imagined I’d be part of her daily conversation. I will forever be grateful to the legends I worked with and, most especially, the listeners who made it all happen. I’ve had the privilege of being part of a pretty amazing family for 40 years.

Here’s the emotional moment his Nov. 13 retirement was announced on the air. He stressed that the retirement is not health related, and he will be devoting time to his travel agency.

“Dale Bowman, longtime Sun-Times outdoors columnist, escapes for new adventure.”

Bowman, 68, wrote a regular feature in the Sun-Times sports section for nearly 30 years. In his farewell essay, he wrote that the column “evolved from a focus on fishing to include more hunting, then, in recent years, broadened to more conservation and habitat restoration.”

Tribune automotive columnist Bob Weber dies at 77

Weber, a freelance contributor who lived in Virginia, had been writing the “Motormouth” Q&A column for the Tribune for nearly 30 years. He died of heart failure on Oct. 17, according to writer Bob Goldsborough’s obituary. He worked up until the very end, with his last column appearing in the Tribune two days later, Oct. 19.

Weber’s final published sentence was, as usual, useful: “Dipsticks are not the most accurate measuring devices.”

Tribune offering attentive readers attractive deals on digital subscriptions

The offer on the left is here; the offer on the right is here. Both are very attractive teaser rates, and you can’t go wrong if you’re someone who keeps an eye on the expiration of such deals and calls to negotiate better rates.

Meanwhile, last Sunday print subscribers received “College Hoops 25/26,” another so-called “Premium Issue” insert for which the paper quietly charges your account up to $15.99. For years now, I’ve been reminding subscribers that you can opt out of paying that whopping extra fee for these inserts by calling the customer service line, 312-546-7900, and requesting that you not be charged. The hitch has long been that the exemption lasted only six months, after which you’d have to call and renew the request. But after several readers contacted me to say they’d been able to opt out permanently, I called and found that, yes, with a little bit of firmness with the operator, you can stop paying for “Premium Issues” forever.

Dept. of unfortunate wording

Here’s the opening paragraph of a Tribune editorial Wednesday:

The next paragraph and subsequent laudatory mentions make it clear that Emanuel is a committed advocate for victims of domestic violence and is working “to help end domestic violence by promoting accountability, compassion and respect in all relationships.”

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

I’ll tell you something about heroin for me. I did very, very poorly in school until I started doing narcotics. Then I went to the top of my class. Because my mind was so restless and turbulent. And I could not sit still. The teacher would be at the front of the room talking, and it would be like noises coming out of her mouth. I would probably today be diagnosed with ADHD. I was bouncing off the walls. I couldn’t sit still. … In school, I was non compos mentis. I had no idea what was happening, and I was at the bottom of my class. I started doing heroin. I went to the top of my class. Suddenly, I could sit still and I could read and I could concentrate. I could listen to what people were saying. Things made sense to me. — U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I pray that “Big Beautiful Bill” will be the name of Trump’s cellmate. — Sign at a “No Kings” rally

The desperate desire of Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden to avoid any appearance of partisanship led the (U.S. Department of Justice) to put off looking into evidence of a potential crime and gave Trump an advantage that few appreciated at the time. Garland’s delays softened the ground and would eventually help Trump remake the Justice Department into his own cudgel. … Nearly a year passed (after Jan. 6, 2021) before just one prosecutor was assigned to investigate possible ties between the former president’s circle and the deadly riot. And a full 15 months elapsed before the F.B.I., the department’s investigative arm, agreed to join in that hunt for answers. — Carol Leonnig, co-author of the forthcoming book “Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department.” (gift link)

Pretty awesome how we sacrificed our constitutional rights in exchange for more expensive healthcare and food. — @pleasebegneiss.bsky.social‬

We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked. — The Duke of Coffin Castle in James Thurber’s “The 13 Clocks”

Americans voted in Trump to lower the cost of living and return the United States to the political and economic status quo as it was before the pandemic. But rather than meet the public where it was, Trump and his cadre of ideologues in the White House took their victory to mean that they could pursue their most radical dreams and try to make good on their extreme preoccupations. In 2024, the Americans who decided the election voted for lower prices and a lower cost of living. What they got instead were soldiers on the streets, masked agents leading violent immigration raids, arbitrary tariffs, new conflicts abroad, dictatorial aspirations, endless chaos and a president more interested in taking a wrecking ball to the White House to build his garish ballroom than delivering anything of value to the public. — New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie (gift link)

St. Peter at the Pearly Gates: Did you live by the Ten Commandments? U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson: I have no idea. I have not seen those. —@itsabbyyep.bsky.social‬

The reason (I purchased) Twitter is because it was ​causing destruction at a civilizational level. I tweeted on Twitter at the time that it’s ​​worm-tongue for the world — ​you know like worm-tongue from Lord of the Rings where he would just sort of whisper ​terrible things to the king ​s​o the king would believe ​things that were​n’t true. And unfortunately Twitter really got, like​, it got like, the ​w​oke mob essentially control​led Twitter, and they were pushing a​ nihilistic anti-civilizational m​ind virus to the world​. And you can see the results of that mind virus on the ​streets of San Francisco where downtown San Francisco looks like a zombie apocalypse. So it’s bad/so we don’t want the whole world to be a zombie apocalypse. But that’s ​essentially — they’re pushing this very negative nihilistic untrue worldview on the world, and it was causing a lot of damage​. — Elon Musk

Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 25 says that Jesus says very clearly, at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive and welcome him? Or not? And I think there’s a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what’s happening. Many people who have lived for years and years and years never causing problems have been deeply affected by what’s going on right now — Pope Leo

Your premiums may be going up, tariffs may be shutting down your small businesses, you may be losing your food assistance, but it’ll all be OK because Donald Trump is building a ballroom that looks like the inside of Marie Antoinette’s vagina. — Jon Stewart

Always wear .. what, Mary Schmich?

“What is sunscreen?” is the correct solution to this recent “Jeopardy” poser based on Schmich’s famous 1997 column, but I posted this image to social media with the instruction, “Wrong answers only.”

Here are some responses:

What is …

• baby oil?

• body glitter?

• spray tan?

• Clearasil?

• tar and feathers?

• Desitin?

• deodorant?

It was at least the second time that the syndicated TV game show “Jeopardy” has used a clue related to this particular column.

The pants on fire president

Daniel Dale of CNN posted this fact check on President Donald Trump’s statements during his “60 Minutes” interview, “the vast majority of them previously debunked.”

• It’s not true grocery prices “are down”; Trump told this lie even after Norah O’Donnell told him they’re up.

• It’s not true there is now “no inflation” (it’s at 3%) or that it’s “less than 2%” (it’s at 3%).

• It’s not true it was “my idea, which nobody, frankly, had thought of,” to have AI facilities generate their own power on-site (they were already starting to do that while he was out of office, with Biden administration encouragement).

• It’s not true “$17 trillion” is being invested in the U.S. “right now” (this fictional figure is nearly double the White House’s own wildly inflated “announcements” figure).

• It’s not true each alleged drug boat “kills 25,000 Americans” (this figure plainly makes no sense given U.S. overdose death totals).

• It’s not true some recent former presidents invoked the Insurrection Act “28 times” (Ulysses S. Grant has the record because he invoked it on six occasions).

• It’s not true Trump has ended “eight wars” (among other issues, his list includes two situations that weren’t wars at all, one war still going full tilt in the DRC, and the Gaza conflict where killing also continues).

• It’s not true the Kamala Harris interview Trump sued “60 Minutes” over an interview aired “two days” before the election (it was more than four full weeks before Election Day).

• It’s not true Biden gave Ukraine “$350 billion” (inspector general says the U.S. had disbursed $94 billion through June 2025 and appropriated $93 billion more, including funds spent in the U.S.).

• It’s not true foreign countries pay his tariffs (U.S. importers make the payments and often pass on costs to consumers).

• It’s not true Trump inherited the worst inflation of all time (it was 3% the month he took office, same as now, and even the 9.1% Biden-era peak in 2022 was not close to the all-time record).

• It’s not true the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” (his usual lie).

• It’s not true the Presidential Records Act says he was allowed to have classified documents at his home post-presidency (it says all presidential records are to be in government custody the moment a president leaves office).

• It’s not true Trump never instructed the Justice Department to go after Comey and James (he explicitly pressured the head of the department to do so in a social media post we all saw).

• It’s not true Democrats are trying to give $1.5 trillion to illegal immigrants in the shutdown battle (even the White House’s own disputed figure is a small fraction of that) or that Biden let in 25 million migrants (it’s well under half that even if you count millions who were rapidly expelled).

• It’s not true foreign leaders have emptied their prisons to somehow insert criminals into the U.S. as migrants (Trump’s own team has never been able to corroborate this story experts say is baseless).

• It’s not true Nancy Pelosi flipped out after finding out his controversial 2019 call with Zelensky “was taped” (there remains no known U.S. tape; what Trump released was a rough transcript, which bolstered rather than undermined Pelosi’s move toward impeachment).

What is true, however, is that Trump’s supporters don’t care how much he lies and never will.

Cheer chat

Update on preparations for the 27th annual “Songs of Good Cheer” winter holiday singalongs Dec. 11 to 14 at the Old Town School of Folk Music hosted by Mary Schmich and me.

We made good progress on how to stage the opening number, “We Need a Little Christmas,” and De’Jah Perkins is going to shine on “Santa Baby,” the most brazenly materialistic of the songs in the Christmas canon.

Here she is rehearsing it followed by a short discussion.

Buy tickets online, by phone (773-728-6000) or at the Old Town School of Folk Music box office, 4544 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago.

Quips

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers then vote for their favorite. Here is the winner from this week’s contest:

The new nominees for Quip of the Week:

• 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

• Cookie Monster’s date: Can we talk about something else? — @viktorwinetrout.bsky.social

• [Year 1440] Johannes Gutenberg: I’ve invented the printing press. Printing press: You’re out of magenta. — @RealRodLacroix

• Someone called me “eccentric” instead of “super weird,” so they must think I have money. — @NikiMarinis

• It’s hard to know if someone is hitchhiking or just, like, really supportive. — @bendictsred.bsky.social

• When your electric toothbrush dies, it becomes a regular toothbrush. Don’t freak out. Just calm down and remember your training. — @Camel_Crushin

• I just found out that the “J” in “PB&J” actually stands for “Jelly,” and this explains a lot about my prior sandwich experiences. — @jakevig.bsky.social

• What is grief if not love persisting, Charlie Brown — @EdgarPoop1

• Me: I’m not great at Rorschach tests, but this also looks like my parents fighting. Eye Doctor: Again, it’s just gonna be letters. — @TheAndrewNadeau

• When I address you “with all due respect,” that’s whatever level of respect I feel I owe you based on your words and actions, which often amounts to zero. — ‪@itsabbyyep.bsky.social

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Why “quips”? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.” Also, I’m finding good stuff on BlueSky now as well.

Minced Words

Cate Plys, Austin Berg and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We rehashed the results of Tuesday’s election, discussed the dismaying tactics of the Border Patrol agents in Chicago, disagreed on politicians and profanity, slammed U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for the timing of his retirement and questioned Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administrative abilities in light of how long it took him to get rid of Clinée Hedspeth, the widely disliked commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Traffic lights:

• John: A green light for the horror movie “Weapons,” released to theaters in August but now available on several streaming platforms. (If you’re like me and don’t care for horror films but are curious about the ending, here is a spoiler essay.)

• Cate: A green light for “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy” An eight-part dramatization of the stomach-turning local story on the Peacock streaming service.

• Austin: A green light for Dusty Groove, a record store at 1120 N. Ashland Ave. in Chicago.

• Eric: A green light for Houndstooth, a restaurant in Benton Harbor, Michigan, said by some locals to be the best place to dine out in Harbor Country.

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.

Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.

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 can be enjoyed at home — i.e., no restaurants, plays, theatrical films, tourist sites and so on.

I’m dipping back into the ’90s for this week’s recommendation — the 1690s. That’s when “Tobacco’s But an Indian Weed” was published. The lyrics are a parable linking smoking to the arc of life and were likely meant in earnest 330 years ago, but they struck me as amusingly overwrought when I heard folk singer and Cicero native Michael Cooney perform the song many years ago. For no particular reason, it came to mind the other day, and here is just one of many YouTube renditions:

The pipe that is so foul within
Shows how the soul is stained with sin
It doth require
The purging fire
Think of this when you smoke tobacco

The ashes that are left behind
Do serve to put us all in mind
That unto dust
Return we must
Think of this when you smoke tobacco

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. 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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