Which are your favorite streaming TV shows? A reader poll

& what does God have against firefighters?

7-17-2025 (issue No. 202)

This week:

• Last week’s winning quip

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked on the federalization of “Invest in Kids,” Michael Madigan’s effort to delay reporting to prison, members of Biden’s inner circle taking the Fifth,Susana Mendoza’s likely run for mayor and more

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

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

• Trump is a blasphemer. Do any of his religious supporters care?

• Is anyone calling this decade “the ’20s”?

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

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

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

• Good Sports — A fond and foul farewell to Lee Elia, a look at those big puffy football helmets and, of course, a check-in with the dreadful Colorado Rockies

• Green Lights? — A series of reader polls on the streaming TV shows with the most Emmy nominations

Last week’s winning quip

New evidence suggests ancient Egyptians visited the pyramids only when friends were in from out of town. — The Onion

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 recently passed omnibus federal budget bill contains a version of the discontinued “Invest in Kids” program.

VIew: It’s an end run around the prohibition of the use of taxpayer money to fund religious schools and so I find it objectionable. Invest in Kids worked this way: Citizens interested in supporting private education donated to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) that oversaw the disbursal of tuition stipends to private school scholarships. Those scholarships were for children whose family income was up to 400% of the federal poverty level, and helped them attend nonpublic schools.

Donors could claim 75% of their donation as a tax credit, meaning that if they contributed $10,000 to an SGO, they could subtract $7,500 from the amount that they would normally have owed in state income taxes. With a normal charitable donation, you may deduct the amount from the income on which you pay taxes, a far less attractive benefit. The shortcut meant that the state didn’t technically give out the money. But that $7,500 would have gone into the state’s general revenue fund if it hadn’t ended up at one of the schools on the approved list, many of which were run by religious organizations.

Shia Kapos in Politico:

The federal program offers a 100 percent federal tax credit for individuals who donate up to $1,700 to Scholarship Granting Organizations that provide scholarships to students from families earning up to 300% of the area median income. … There’s one catch: Governors must opt in to the program in order for residents to benefit. No word on what he’ll do but ... Pritzker has indicated he doesn’t like the policy, saying in a statement that he sees it “potentially reducing state and federal funding for public schools that experience a decline in student enrollment.”

Those who use the idea of “failing public schools” to gin up enthusiasm for the program don’t seem to care that it stands only to hurt public schools and the pupils who remain in them by siphoning resources from them.

And it’s worth pointing out that those who object to efforts to end it can still donate all they want to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations and count those donations as charitable contributions for tax purposes. Their high-minded talk belies the fact that if they want to offer impoverished children more school choice — if they are truly altruistic rather than just directing money that’s not theirs (tax payments) into a program that will weaken public education and teachers unions — they’ll still be able to do so if the program isn’t renewed by the General Assembly.

News: Tribune bosses remain mum about pending newsroom layoffs.

View: The failure of leadership at the Tribune is as ominous as the threat of layoffs. Here’s an excerpt from a letter the newsroom union sent to members last Thursday:

Only one of our union colleagues, Ray Long, took the buyout. We’ve all been incredibly fortunate to have Ray as a wise, generous colleague and a powerful union brother. Congrats on your retirement, Ray! …

Looking forward, we continue to expect that layoffs will come soon. We have been told that they will not occur this week and could possibly not occur next week either. We have also been told they will include non-Guild staff. (Executive Editor Mitch Pugh) has said that he does not have details yet on how many people might be affected in a layoff and when exactly a layoff would occur. He said he is waiting on more information from his bosses. But his sentiment was clear: Layoffs are being planned.

He also said that he currently cannot meet with us in a “town hall” to answer questions, but welcomed us to talk with him individually while suggesting he won't have much information to share. It continues to disappoint us that our managers have not communicated with the newsroom — we deserve better communication.

News: Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is asking the courts to let him remain free as he appeals his conviction.

View: I lack the legal training to offer an opinion about the merits of Madigan’s appeal, but if I were him, I’d want to report to prison tout de suite in order to begin to get done with the 6.3-year stint he’s been sentenced to serve in the spa with no toilet lids.

(Technically his sentence is 7.5 years, but he’ll serve at most 6.3 years — probably much less due to the sort of “compassionate release” that recently sprung former Ald. Ed Burke after he’d served less than 40% of his official sentence.)

The delay could happen, though. On Sept. 6, 2006, former Gov. George Ryan was sentenced to 6.5 years for his corruption convection and ordered to report to prison on Jan. 4, 2007. But he was granted an appeal bond and didn’t ultimately report to prison until Nov. 7, 2007, a bit more than 11 months after his original report-by date.

As of now, Madigan is scheduled to report to prison on Oct. 13.

News: Former President Joe Biden’s physician, his wife and a former senior advisor to the first lady have all pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify to the Republican-led House Oversight Committee looking into Biden’s mental fitness while in office.

View: A very bad look. Yes, it’s a mean-spirited probe that will lead nowhere. But, um, the Fifth says no one may “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” suggesting that Jill Biden, Dr. Kevin O’Conner and Anthony Bernal fear that their honest testimony might expose them to criminal liability.

Sorry, but when you take the Fifth, it’s common sense to assume you’ve got something very damning to hide.

News: The Justice Department on Wednesday fired highly regarded prosecutor Maurene Comey from the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York; “According to sources, (President Donald) Trump privately vented about having a Comey work in his administration.”

View: Bless his heart, butTrump is a vindictive piece of shit. Can anyone argue with this?

News: Democratic Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza looks likely to run for mayor of Chicago

View: I like her chances if, as expected, she runs. Yes, she finished 5th in the wild race for mayor in 2019, a race ultimately won by Lori Lightfoot, but back then she was seen as too close to sleazy party insiders such as former Ald. Ed Burke and then House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Those former associations won’t matter nearly as much in 2027 as they did in 2019, as Mendoza has spent the intervening years building a solid reputation as a hard-working, independent-minded officeholder.

Land of Linkin’

• The history of applause

• Coming across a link to this short clip about the “Homonym” game show reminded me how much I loved the NBC sitcom “30 Rock.”

• Readers discussed the hot issue of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) — also called “granny flats” — in Tuesday’s Picayune Plus. The Chicago City council delayed a vote on the topic Wednesday.

• Why I will not do better and stop using the expression “do better.”

• “El Bosque, Mexico, a tiny fishing village on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, is quickly vanishing into the sea. In this (magnificently edited) episode (of the New Orleans Public Radio podcast ‘Sea Change,’, we journey to El Bosque to meet the town’s most unlikely hero—one person determined to fight for a future as her neighbors flee the encroaching waves.”

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:

■ This Way Out: Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob offers five scenarios for averting a Donald Trump dictatorship.

■ Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on the “twisted people” with which Trump’s surrounded himself: “The good news is they will all but ensure that he will overplay his hand. The bad is that, by then, they may have demolished much that is good about this country.”

■ “White women need to step up”: Recounting her confrontation with “a group of large, burly men in camouflage shirts, masks covering their faces, and dark grey baseball caps huddled in front of a business,” columnist and former Illinois Rep. Marie Newman calls for more “white women to … start getting in between DHS officers and the people they are terrorizing.”

■ “I triggered another federal investigation”: Sources tell investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein “the California National Guard cut off soldier access to vital military information because of what I reported.”

■ CNN: Fox News has taken Trump’s plea for his allies to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein almost literally.

■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke goes the other way, invoking Epstein’s name close to 50 times—concluding: “And definitely don’t look at the sentence that the first letter of each paragraph above spells out.”

■ The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol offers “A Guide for the Perplexed” in the Epstein case.

■ American exceptionalism: Columnist Jeff Tiedrich on Trump’s cluelessness as he met with African leaders: “What a fucking embarrassment.”

■ Zeteo asked Republican senators if they knew how many Americans Israel has killed since Oct. 7. “None of them did.”

■ The American Prospect: The Republican wrecking ball is slamming through the U.S. medical system.

■ Rolling Stone: “Man Afraid to Ride Subway Named Head of NASA.”

■ “They should have been paying attention”: A lawyer whose two girls were rescued from Texas’ flood-devastated Camp Mystic reacts to Washington Post reporting (a gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters) that the camp’s executive director—who died in the onslaught—didn’t begin an evacuation for more than an hour after he got a phone alert.

■ Death threats against a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who used the Texas tragedy to jab those who maintain “government is the problem, not the solution” prompted cancellation of a Buffalo event to support local journalism.

■ “Elmo can’t go back on the streets, Jon!” In a comedy tour de force, Jon Stewart interviewed “Elmo” (voiced by Stewart) about the antisemitic remarks attributed to Elmo after the hacking of his Twitter X account, only to have the puppet concede the tweets constituted pandering to Trump’s acolytes to avert cuts for PBS funding. See the whole bit here.

■ LateNighter recaps looming corporate threats to Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” and Stewart’s “Daily Show.”

■ Rip in peace: Ex-Cubs manager Lee Elia, famous for an expletive-filled 1983 rant against unsupportive fans, is dead at 87. Two years ago, The Sporting News broke down his commentary line by line, concluding he wasn’t wrong about a lot. Hear for yourself in all its unedited glory.

■ Suspect email? A free service called Snitcher.space can tell you whether strange mail is a scam. Just forward it to scan@snitcher.space.

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

Revolting blasphemy. Not that any of Trump’s supporters care.

If the other bullets had simply gone astray, well, OK. It’s very problematic to ascribe any turn of events as evidence of God’s will, but believers reflexively do it. Even nonbelievers will say “Thank God!” to express relief at a favorable outcome.

But here, if Trump thinks God was guiding the bullets of his would-be assassin last July, he has to account for the fact that one of the bullets killed former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore as he tried to shield his wife and daughters. Was that just a divine oopsie? Was God indifferent to Comperatore?

Unctuous Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson added, “God miraculously spared the president's life. I think it's undeniable. And he did it for an obvious purpose. His presidency and his life are the fruits of divine providence.”

And let’s not forget the pious Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaking about the deadly flash flood in Texas: “I'm extremely grateful for God's hand in the whole situation, because hundreds and hundreds of people were saved.”

This is depraved theology. Infamous and vile. And here I’ll quote a unknown source on social media: “The rewards and good fortune heaped on the most despicable and treacherous people is all you really need to disprove any higher power.”

Lingo failure?

Over at BlueSky, Jack Boot made the observation that we're halfway through the decade, and he’s yet to hear anyone refer to “the ’20s.”

Same.

Maybe we got out of the habit of naming decades when the years 2000 to 2009 were only occasionally and awkwardly referred to as “the aughts,” and in the years 2010 to 2019 when neither “the tens” or the “the teens” sounded right.

Or maybe I’ve been missing all the references.

Have you heard references to “the ’20s”?

Quotables

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

Jack Donaghy: I want you on this, Lemon. Those jokes you wrote for my Mitt Romney fundraiser, they were top-notch. Liz Lemon: Those weren't jokes! That was an appeal for a return to common sense and decency. Jack Donaghy: Well, they got big laughs. — “30 Rock”

One of the most amusing but under-discussed subplots in the Star Wars movies was how Emperor Palpatine kept trying to convince everyone that he was a natural choice for the Nobel Peace prize. — Frank Ray Whitehouse

The last week has brought back painful memories of the time I dated Pam Bondi and she made me look bad by posting a deceptively edited ten-second sex tape online. Where were the missing two minutes, Pam? — Frank Ray Whitehouse

If churches can make political endorsements and make political donations, they can pay taxes. — California state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez

It's very sad from a personal standpoint what's happened to Governor Ryan, Mrs. Ryan, their children, their grandchildren. From a personal standpoint, it's a very sad and unfortunate situation. It's also a reminder to everybody that no matter how low or high you are, no one is above the law. — then Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2007 as his predecessor was headed off to prison

Because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interest of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She's a threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. — Donald Trump

Hey Donald, you're rattled again. Eighteen years later, and I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours. You call me a threat to humanity. but I'm everything you fear: A loud woman, a queer woman, a mother who tells the truth, an American who got out of the country before you set it ablaze. You build walls. I build a life for my autistic kid in the country where decency still exists. You crave loyalty. I teach my children to question power. You sell fear on golf courses. I make art about surviving trauma. You lie, you steal, you degrade. I nurture, I create. I persist. You are everything that is wrong with America, and I’m everything you hate about what's still right with it. You want to revoke my citizenship. Go ahead and try, King Joffrey with a tangerine spray tan. I'm not yours to silence. I never was. — Rosie O’Donnell

How is it that half of America looks at Donald Trump and doesn’t find him morally repellent? He lies, cheats, steals, betrays, and behaves cruelly and corruptly, and more than 70 million Americans find him, at the very least, morally acceptable. Some even see him as heroic, admirable and wonderful. What has brought us to this state of moral numbness? … Trump … doesn’t even try to speak the language of morality. When he pardons unrepentant sleazeballs, it doesn’t seem to even occur to him that he is doing something that weakens our shared moral norms. Trump speaks the languages we moderns can understand. The language of preference: I want. The language of power: I have the leverage. The languages of self, of gain, of acquisition. Trump doesn’t subsume himself in a social role. He doesn’t try to live up to the standards of excellence inherent in a social practice. He treats even the presidency itself as a piece of personal property he can use to get what he wants. … So of course many people don’t find Trump morally repellent. He’s just an exaggerated version of the kind of person modern society was designed to create. — David Brooks

If Donald Trump hates immigrants so much, he should stop marrying them. — @bornmiserable

My "There’s nothing in the Epstein files" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt — Please Be Gneiss

(Trump’s) nothing-to-see-here approach (to the Epstein story) doesn’t work for those who’ve learned from him they must not give up until the government’s deepest, darkest secrets are exposed. … The political crisis is especially challenging for Trump because it’s one of his own making. The president has spent years stoking dark theories and embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only savior who can demolish the “deep state.” Now that he’s running the federal government, the community he helped build is coming back to haunt him. It’s demanding answers he either isn’t able to or doesn’t want to provide. — The Associated Press

A big part of (the right-wing concern over the Epstein files) is that, deep down, MAGATs actually know that they are unethical, sociopathological pieces of shit, and pretending as a movement to collectively care about child abuse was the single claim to virtue they had left. — Frank Ray Whitehouse

We need to learn from the Blacks. The way they were able to remove the power from the n-word word by using it. So from now on, it’s: “What up, my Nazi?” “Hey, what up, my Nazi?” “Hey, what's hanging, my Nazi?” … This is why the criticism doesn’t matter to us, when you call us “Nazis.” — Greg Gutfeld, Fox News

To those of you just realizing that Donald Trump is a sexual predator connected to Epstein, he also:

• Lost the 2020 election

• Caused an insurrection

• Stole national security secrets

• Is a convicted felon

• Did not make you rich with tariffs

• Did not release a healthcare plan in two weeks, two years, or at any point during his two terms

• Massively increased the national debt and continues to do so

• Did not bring peace through strength

• Did not stop the war in Ukraine within 24 hours

• Is a terrible businessman who has a laundry list of bankruptcies

• Is only rich because his parents gave him an insane amount of money, which he handled worse than if he had just stuck it in an index fund

• Turned to corruption to build his wealth further

• Didn't get Mexico to pay for a wall

• Didn't solve the debt with tariffs

• Didn't get 90 trade deals in 90 days. He got zero

• Had his son and campaign staff meet with Russian agents during the 2016 campaign

• Attempted a quid pro quo with Ukraine during his first term

• Said he could terminate the Constitution and that he wouldn't rule out using the military against US citizens prior to sending Marines to LA and threatened to revoke citizenship from Americans

• Lied over 30,000 times during his first presidency

• Praises dictators and gangsters

• Doesn't care about you at all

Now that you're starting to see Trump for who he is, make sure to see the whole picture. — Jared Ryan Sears

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:

• Signing off my emails to people I don't like with "wishes" so they are in no doubt they don't deserve my best wishes, and fear what kind of wishes I have used. — @wildethingy

• 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

• Hi folks, this is your captain speaking. Do you ever hear voices telling you to do something terrible? — @viktorwinetrout.bsky.social

• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me nine times, this is the “Jurassic Park” movie franchise. — ‪@itsabbyyep.bsky.social

• When you wear a cardigan for the very first time it's just called a card. — @frovo.bsky.social

• When you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, you have to prove it by placing your hand on a book that claims snakes and donkeys can talk. — @BettyBowers

• I don’t care what they call Batman sequels, but I definitely think Superman should be pronounced like it’s a Jewish name. — @ed_solomon

• Not knowing about Greek mythology is my Achilles horse. — @MatthewPCrowley

• I believe clothes should make a statement. For example: mine say “This guy should probably spend more money on clothes.” — @ADHDeanASL

• Me: “Ceased” means stopped, so “deceased” means not stopped. Death: Yeah, no, you’re still dead. — @frovo.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, Brandon Pope, Austin Berg, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We covered the waterfront on national and local issues and offered our thoughts on the Emmy nominations.

I closed by taking note that Brandon just lost his gig at WCIU-TV in a round of layoffs and noting, as I did on social media that he’s a savvy, multitalented journalist adept at analyzing sports, pop culture and politics. Any news organization would be lucky to have him.

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 the regular panelists here.

Good Sports

The artistry of Lee Elia’s profanity

Former Cub manager Lee Elia died July 9 at 87, and in taking note of his passing, I offer you, unedited, his epic post-game rant of April 29, 1983:

Fuck those fuckin’ fans who come out here and say they’re Cub fans that are supposed to be behind you rippin’ every fuckin’ thing you do. I’ll tell you one fuckin’ thing: I hope we get fuckin’ hotter than shit, just to stuff it up them 3,000 fuckin’ people that show up every fuckin’ day. Because if they’re the real Chicago fuckin’ fans, they can kiss my fuckin’ ass right downtown and PRINT IT!

They’re really, really behind you around here … my fuckin’ ass. What the fuck am I supposed to do, go out there and let my fuckin’ players get destroyed every day and be quiet about it? For the fuckin’ nickel-dime people that show up? The motherfuckers don’t even work. That’s why they’re out at the fuckin’ game. They oughta go out and get a fuckin’ job and find out what it’s like to go out and earn a fuckin’ living.

Eighty-five percent of the fuckin’ world’s working. The other fifteen come out here. It’s a fuckin’ playground for the cocksuckers. Rip them motherfuckers. Rip them fuckin’ cocksuckers like the fuckin’ players. We got guys bustin’ their fuckin’ ass, and them fuckin’ people boo. And that’s the Cubs? My fuckin’ ass.

They talk about the great fuckin’ support that the players get around here. I haven’t seen it this fuckin’ year. The name of the game is hit the ball, catch the ball and get the fuckin’ job done.

Right now, we have more losses than we have wins. The fuckin’ changes that have happened in the Cub organization are multifold. All right, they don’t show because we’re 5 and 14. And unfortunately, that’s the criteria of them dumb 15 motherfuckin’ percent that come out to day baseball. The other 85 percent are earning a living.

It’ll take more than a 5 and 13 or 5 and 14 to destroy the makeup of this club. I guarantee you that. There’s some fuckin’ pros out there that wanna fuckin’ play this game. But you’re stuck in a fuckin’ stigma of the fuckin’ Dodgers and the Phillies and the Cardinals and all that cheap shit. All these motherfuckin’ editorials about Cey and fuckin’ the Phillie-ities and all that shit, it’s sickening. It’s unbelievable. It really is. It’s a disheartening fuckin’ situation that we’re in right now.

5-14 doesn’t negate all that work. We have 143 fuckin’ games left. What I’m tryin’ to say is don’t rip them fuckin’ guys out there. Rip me. If you wanna rip somebody, rip my fuckin’ ass. But don’t rip them fuckin’ guys ’cause they’re givin’ everything they can give. But once we hit that fuckin’ groove, it’ll flow. And it will flow. The talent’s there. I don’t know how to make it any clearer to you.

I’m frustrated. I’ll guarantee I’m frustrated It would be different if I walked into this room everyday at 8:30 and saw a bunch of guys who didn’t give a shit. They give a shit. And it’s tough National League East. It’s a tough National league period.

Hat tip to Charlie Meyerson for this link to an analysis of some of the claims in the rant in The Sporting News.

Here’s a parody commercial that blended Elia’s tirade with the 1983 Cub’s promotional campaign:

If the turtle helmets reduce practice injuries, why don’t more players wear them in games?

You’ll be seeing lots of photos like this from NFL training camps this summer:

The padded helmets are called “Guardian Caps,” and NFL rules changed last year to allow players to wear them during the regular season.

ESPN:

The padded headgear was mandated for players at certain positions during training camp in 2022 and 2023. Speaking earlier this year, NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller said that Guardian Caps have contributed to a nearly 50% reduction in concussions for the position groups that wore them during those time periods.

But in “The NFL embraced soft-shell helmet covers to protect players from concussions. Here’s what the science says about them,” CNN sounded skeptical:

Intuitively, putting more padding around a football player’s head might sound like a good idea, but there’s little independent research showing that it reduces the force of blows to the head or that it prevents head injuries. … The handful of published studies that have tested the caps on college football players running drills have failed to find any benefit compared with helmets alone. … Several groups of independent researchers have recently tested Guardian Caps in laboratory settings and in the real world, and they say the jury is very much out on the question of whether they work.

Anecdotal reports suggest that the real reason players haven’t embraced them is aesthetics.

The Washington Times:

(The Guardian Cap is) ugly and, for some players, too heavy.

The lumpy padding throws off the aesthetics of helmets, causing some players to refer to them as “mushroom caps.”

“Ew,” Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jonathan Greenard wrote on X in response to (Colt’s running back Jonathan) Taylor’s use of the gear. …

“I can’t stand them. It impacts my swag,” Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Darius Slay told CBS Sports last week. “My game is part of my swag. If I ain’t looking the part, I can’t feel the part. They have me looking very ugly out there with that big ol’ cap on the head.”

Some players have also raised concerns about the added weight of the caps.

“No way. It’s like an extra 10 pounds on your head; it makes it a lot hotter, heavier,” Miami Dolphins linebacker Jordyn Brooks told Pro Football Network, calling the added equipment “UFO Caps.” “No, I wouldn’t do it.”

The Guardian Cap weighs 7 ounces, according to the company. And I’m reminded of the objections that hockey players had to mandatory helmet rules in the NHL 45 years ago. If research ultimately bears out claims that they reduce head injuries, football at all levels will likely mandate them.

Rock bottom?

Rather than remind you each week of the various records for MLB futility that 2025 Colorado Rockies are chasing, I have created this permanent link that explains the table below.

At the All-Star break:

The Rockies, now with a winning percentage of .229, need to play .303 ball down the stretch to beat the Sox and .258 ball to beat the A’s.

After last year’s All-Star break, the Sox went 14-50 (.219) during the balance of the season, including a 1-16 collapse from Aug. 17 to Sept. 3

Green Lights?

I’m breaking format this week to post a series of click polls to get reader opinions on the streaming TV shows that got the most Emmy nominations Tuesday. Here are your options:

• Green light — I recommend this series.

• Yellow light — It was OK, but I’m not recommending it.

• Red light — I did not like and do not recommend.

• Haven't watched it

This poll closed:

606 votes

Speaking of “The Bear,” the Emmys putting that show into the comedy category is itself a joke. Just watched Episode 9 of Season 4, and in the middle of an intense, searing scene involving regret, neglect and alcoholism that featured gripping performances by actors Jeremy Allen White and Jamie Lee Curtis, I turned to Johanna and said, “These comedies, they crack me up.”

Info

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. Browse and search back issues here.

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