You gonna still tip 20% if the tipped minimum wage rises to the prevailing minimum wage?

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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Rabbit rabbit everyone

Milburn Pennybags is ecstatic about the prospect of the Big Hideous Bill

Can the Big Hideous Trainwreck be averted?

As I type, news reports suggest it’s a close call whether Donald Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that overhauls tax, health care, immigration and energy policy will pass both houses of Congress. Even without effective oppositional branding by the generally feckless Democrats, most Americans realize there are so many rotten ideas in this sprawling legislation that it will be disastrous, particularly to the less fortunate.

Here’s Fox News:

By a 21-point margin, voters questioned in the most recent Fox News national poll opposed the federal budget legislation (38% favored vs. 59% opposed) … The bill was also underwater in national surveys conducted this month by the Washington Post (minus 19 points), Pew Research (minus 20 points) and Quinnipiac University (minus 26 points).

Here’s a tidbit I was unaware of until recently, via PBS:

The current annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government’s primary department for immigration enforcement, is around $10 billion. … President Donald Trump’s spending cuts and border security package would inject roughly $150 billion into his mass deportation agenda over the next four years.

Huffington Post:

The bill would provide $45 billion to build immigration jails “for single adult alien detention capacity and family residential center capacity” — a 13-fold increase over ICE’s 2024 detention budget, according to a National Immigration Law Center analysis.

A separate part of the bill allocates $29.9 billion in additional funding for ICE activities, including hiring thousands of new immigration agents and giving them five-figure signing and retention bonuses, as well as for transportation contracts to shuttle migrants between detention centers and out of the country, Migrant Insider reported.

Customs and Border Protection would get $46.6 billion for border wall construction and even more for facilities ($5 billion), personnel ($4.1 billion), bonuses ($2.05 billion) and vehicles ($855 million).

This is how we want to spend our money? Not on health care for the poor or environmental protection or early childhood education or infrastructure or keeping the deficit in check? But for chasing down every last undocumented person — even the most law abiding and productive — and offering tax cuts that most benefit Milburn Pennybags and his fellow oligarchs?

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

Bombing Iran

Fred — My guess is Israel knew what it was doing when it attacked the Iranian nuclear facilities. For those experts who say Iran wasn’t close to creating nuclear weapons, are we supposed to wait until Iran has the weapons? At this point I’m in wait-and-see mode.

Pete Prokopowicz — How close Iran is or was to having a nuclear bomb is irrelevant — they aren't responsible enough to have one and it is incontestable that they are doing the hard work of enriching uranium to make one possible. Treaties that don't result in them giving up their stockpile and destroying the equipment that is producing it don't address the issue.

The attack seems at best a partial success in stopping and reversing their progress. It might serve to get Iran to relinquish everything rather than face more destruction, but my guess is that the violence is going to continue until there truly is nothing left of their Manhattan project.

David Leitschuh — Our world is now a much safer place without the imminent existential threat of a fanatical Iranian regime with nuclear weapons, and I give full credit to Trump's leadership politically and as our commander in chief and getting this done.

Zorn — Like Fred, above, I’m in a wait-and-see mode, as we don’t yet have the answer to the question of whether the world is now a safer place in the wake of the bombing attacks. There are long-tail aftereffects to such military actions — in 1941, the people of Japan might have momentarily congratulated their leaders for making the world a safer place by doing great damage to the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor. And how did that work out for them?

Why didn’t Presidents Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump 45 and Biden launch such a raid on Iran even as Netanyahu has been saying since at least 1996 that the Iranians are on the brink of getting a nuclear bomb? Were they cowardly? Ignorant? Deluded? Naive? I’m guessing they gamed out such an attack and worried that it was more likely than not to touch off a horrific regional or even global conflict. But maybe they were wrong and Trump was right. He’s right about getting rid of the penny, after all.

JB Pritzker is running for a third term (and maybe the presidency)

Doug Hurdelbrink — Your praise of JB Pritzker — “I think he’s overall been a fine chief executive for the state, and I’ll be happy to have him for four more years” — seems lavish. What do you make of the criticism from the Illinois Policy Institute? The descent of Illinois, in economics and education, to the bottom 10% or 20% of the country is undeniable. JB doesn’t seem to be moving the needle on these trends; do we praise him for just paying state bills on time by, in part, raising a lot of nuisance taxes?

Chuck Wolf — With more vision and courage, Pritzker would have made a more serious attempt to improve the state’s financial condition, especially its crushing pension debt. He could have attempted to raise income taxes on everyone, at least temporarily, for this purpose. He could have supported legislation and a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that there would be no future increases in defined benefit pension plans except as required to comply with federal law. He could have supported a tax on retirement benefits (we are one of only 7 states with income taxes that do not do that). He could have instituted a DOGE program for Illinois (but obviously not the way Trump and Musk did it). Don’t try to tell me there is no waste and abuse in Illinois. Some of these measures might not have passed and would not be popular but he should have been willing to take some risks and try to be a leader, not just act like a political hack sucking up to public sector labor unions.

Joanie Wimmer — I think Pritzker’s done a great job as Governor. Illinois’s backlog of unpaid bills rose to $16.7 billion under Republican Governor Bruce Rauner. Under Pritzker, that has been essentially paid down. Yet the Illinois Policy Institute continues to label the Democrats as fiscally irresponsible.

Laurence E Siegel — Illinois is on an economic downside and the budget deficit continues to worsen. If Pritzker can't fix it, it won't help presidential chances. For those worried that he’s getting paid for one job while campaigning for another, get over it. That's how we get most presidents. If they haven't been doing something else, they get accused of lacking the experience necessary for the office.

Zorn — Pritzker made the case for himself in his campaign announcement video and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from his detractors next year. Bottom line is that only MAGA Republicans seem to be able to make it out of Republican primaries, so besotted is the Grumpy Old Party with all things Trump, and the state went 54%-44% for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris last November. If an independent Republican similar to former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger could get through a primary, Pritzker might be in trouble. Right now, though, he’s safe.

The Ten Commandments in public school classrooms

David Graf — Regarding your argument against the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, as a Christian, I have always been puzzled by the desire of other believers to put the Ten Commandments in public schools and in public places like a city hall. After all, every picture we display of Jesus — including crucifixes — violates the commandment against graven images. Plus, Jesus summed it up in two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. If we're going to push commandments, why not those two instead of the Ten Commandments? I suspect that a lot of the push behind posting the Commandments is a desire to mark our spot and demonstrate to others that we're calling the shots. It's akin to a dog peeing to mark its territory.

Zorn — Excellent visual imagery! Frankly, though, I don’t want public schools or teachers telling children to “Love God.” That just ain’t their business.

Jay G . — I’m a Roman Catholic, and the fundamentalists’ obsession with the Old Testament, the source of Ten Commandments, has always boggled my mind. From my very parochial and biased view, I conflate Fundamentalists' beliefs with the judgmental/punitive/racist strain(s) of Protestantism that seems to exist in the U.S.

Steven K. — Fundamentalists are mostly frauds. I haven’t met one yet who preaches or adheres to any actual Christian principles, quite the opposite. And of course, the vast majority of them have cast their lot with a leader who is probably the least Christian man on earth.

Mark K. — Forcing public schools to display this religious text is antithetical to the founding principles of our country because it is exclusionary. Anyone who is not Christian will see the Commandments posted and know they are not fully accepted, only tolerated at best. The posting of the Ten Commandments tells them that they are the "other" and they better watch themselves. It's a claim on territory, saying "You don't tell us what to do, we tell you what to do". "Stickin' it to the libs" at its finest.

Jeff Biss — Posting the Ten Commandments in a public school is pure showboating that violated the teachings of Jesus:

Matthew 6:5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full."

There ya go. These fundies have no hope for salvation because:

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

I would gladly post dissents to my point and these concurrences, but I didn’t get even one.

It’s music, but is it art? A discussion with readers

Last week I posted this snippet from an AI-generated folk/country song online —

— and asked whether, if a computer can generate music indistinguishable to the listener from music generated by people, is it “art”? Here are some responses:

John Houck — I couldn’t tell the difference. But then I consider most country music to be simplistic drivel, so I might not be the best person to ask.

Marc Martinez — AI plagiarized music is less than Musak and no more useful than background noise. It is literally 100% copied and mimicked sounds. The shared clip could have been used as a comedic satire of the typical whiny song genre. I think most fans can easily distinguish between talented performers and average performers in both singers and instruments. An AI engine can mimic Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughn but it can’t riff or extemporize without specifically scanning and copying their performance. One thing is certain; the growth of AI melodic noise is the death of originality and creativity since the engine is incapable of either.

Zorn — In fairness, a lot of country songs — and pop/rock songs as well — are simplistic and indistinguishable from parody. So the question becomes whether it has the capacity to delight and move you when you don’t know the source. Sooner or later — maybe it's already been done, for all I know — music fans will be put to a laboratory test in which they will listen to a selection of songs, some generated by actual human beings, some generated by AI and have to discern which is which. I doubt they will be able to.

To call the end products “plagiarized” instead of “synthesized” glides past the point that most music, in fact most art, builds upon itself. Most of our beloved singers and performers blend all their musical and literary inputs into a unique amalgam. AI can “experience” thousands of times more input than a human can, and whether you want to consider the result creative or not is a philosophical, not practical question.

Those who are confident about being able to tell the difference between heartfelt human songs and machine generated melodies strike me as similar to the oenophiles who claim to be able to tell the difference between a $400 bottle of wine and and a $40 bottle of wine. When you put them to a blind test, however, they often can't even tell the difference between a red wine and white wine with red food coloring in it.

In other words, knowing that a clip is AI predisposes you to thinking it's not music, not art, not worthy, But that preconception skewers your judgment (the generic you).

Jake H. — It's not just wine. Violins from the golden age of Italian instrument making (by the likes of Stradivari, et al.), prized in part for their allegedly magical sound, have fared poorly in blind tests of both professional players and listeners compared with modern violins. Here is a rundown of many such studies.

It’s worth thinking about what we really value when we think about such things — wine, antique instruments, pop music, whatever. For instance, when you go the Field Museum to look at archeological specimens — dinosaur bones, etc. — I doubt you can tell the difference just by looking between the genuine articles and the replicas made from casts. I certainly can't. And yet I gain greater enjoyment knowing that what I'm looking at was an actual dinosaur that actually pranced around my planet many millions of years ago. We value authenticity and rareness. We have similar concerns with respect to jewelry, documents, antiques of any sort, and so on.

Why is it so important to know whether a da Vinci painting was actually by da Vinci? Beyond historical interest, people value genuine paintings or other works of art — like Greek and Roman statues say — not only for their aesthetic merit but because the thing itself represents an immediate, tangible link to something we find interesting out of the past; the hand of a master, the culture of a time long ago.

One might argue that such notions amount to irrational sentimentality, but sentiment as such, like any emotion, is neither rational nor irrational. It just is. It only becomes irrational when deployed to assert dubious facts about the world —that old Italian instruments generally sound better than new ones, for example, or that analog recording produces a more authentic sound than digital recording, or that expensive wines made by legendary vintners always taste better.

It does not surprise me that AI can produce a country song that sounds like a lot of country songs such that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But I take Marc Martinez’s point that part of the enjoyment of music comes not only from the merits of the song itself but also from hooking into the life experience of the performer in some way.

Zorn — There’s no question that people value originality and authenticity even when they can’t apprehend it with their senses. Michael Jordan’s rookie card just sold for $2.5 million when a near-perfect copy might go for a buck or two. A friend who is into wines once told me that his enjoyment of a bottle is enhanced purely by the knowledge that it’s expensive, even though he can’t taste the difference And of course the world of fashion and fine art can be all about the brands and names, not necessarily the objective quality of the products.

Steven K. — The production of popular music has long been heavily influenced by electronic artifice. Entire genres of music are created with sampling and knob twiddling at a console rather than what might be considered “organic” instrumentation. How different, really, is AI generated music?

Zorn — I would say that the market will speak, but the market may not know the difference as the AI capabilities improve and those who use it to create music conceal their methods. The emotional test for me will come when I learn a new fiddle tune and then find out it’s the product of machine learning.

Unpopular opinions?

A Tribune editorial argues that increases in the tipped minimum wage to bring it in line with the standard minimum are harming restaurants and causing too many to shut their doors:

There is a preponderance of evidence that the end of the tipped minimum wage, which (Mayor Brandon) Johnson has consistently defended using racially charged language, is a major cause of the current crisis. Even some servers agree, because their hours are being cut and they’re being cross-trained to juggle multiple roles as owners try to cut costs. They can see that their workplaces are on the cusp of going out of business.

Tipped employees were getting $9.48 an hour in Chicago, but that lower rate is being phased out with yearly 8% increases until it matches the standard hourly minimum, now $16.60. As of Tuesday, the tipped minimum will go up to $12.62.

I’m sure most of us support the idea that servers should take home at least the standard minimum wage, and the Tribune notes:

It long has been state law that in the event tipped employees such as servers and bartenders do not at least make the prevailing minimum wage, their employers must make up the difference. Few need to do so but still, most do. And, even in the case of the few bad actors, fairness demands that the law be more strictly enforced, rather than forcing all restaurants to increase their wage bills.

Further confusing this issue is that servers may no longer have to pay federal taxes on their tipped income under a provision of the big hideous bill President Trump is flogging. Assuming you have long been a fair and generous tipper when dining out —20% at least for good service — knowing that servers are otherwise under compensated, will the required increase in their base pay prompt you to tip less?

Axios:

• 28% of readers in an unscientific Axios Chicago poll said they lowered tips in the first year of the hikes.

• ADP research has also suggested that as wages increase, tips have become smaller.
  

Last week’s result

409 votes

This occasional Tuesday feature is intended to highlight opinions that are defensible but may well be unpopular. If you have one to add, leave it in comments or send me an email, but be sure to offer at least a paragraph in defense of your view.

From the suggestion box

I’m responding to some of the hundreds of anonymous suggestions/comments that readers posted to my recent reader survey:

Suggestion: Make the typeface in the Picayune Sentinel larger, so it’s easier to read on mobile devices

Reply: The layout options on Substack on my end are very limited. But, to paraphrase Substack’s help menu, you increase the font size of this and others newsletters by adjusting your phone’s text-size settings.

For iPhone: Open Settings: Navigate to Accessibility: Select "Accessibility." Choose Display & Text Size: Tap on "Display & Text Size/"Enable Larger Accessibility Sizes: Select "Larger Text" and toggle it on. Adjust the Slider: Drag the slider to the desired text size.

For Android: Open Settings: Navigate to Accessibility: Select "Accessibility." Find Display Options: Look for options related to display, text, or font size. The exact wording may vary depending on your device manufacturer and Android version. Adjust Text Size: You should find a slider or other controls to adjust the text size. Increase it to your desired size.

Suggestion: Offer more options in your click polls along the lines of “I don’t care,” “It depends,” and “I need to know more.” And for the quip polls, how about a “none of the above” option?

Zorn — I figure “I don’t care” and “none of the above” are reflected in the overall vote totals, and I don’t particularly want to add negativity to the experience of click voting. Occasionally I will add a wishy-washy option along the lines up “unsure” was tempted to do so today, in fact! — but often I’m just asking for a gut feeling one way or the other.

Suggestion: Make it easy for me to subscribe my friends to the free version of the Picayune Sentinel, as I think they’d like it.

Reply: I’m happy to add email addresses if you send them to me, and it’s very easy for the recipients to unsubscribe if for some weird reason they don’t like the PS.

Suggestion: Bring back the Idea Oven, the home for half-baked ideas for consumer products that used to be an occasional feature in your column.

Reply: The Idea Oven was a feature in my column when I was at the Tribune(I left four years ago last week, if you’re keeping track) in which I asked people for ideas for improving the world — products, mostly — that were half-baked in that they didn’t have funding, manufacturers, business plans or necessarily constituents behind them, but seemed like good ideas nevertheless.

The last time I solicited suggestions in my column , back in 2015, I received next to nothing from readers and so gave up on the idea. But I’d fire up the oven again if readers are game

NewsWheel

Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news or other current event. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

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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.

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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle

KHAMENEI