Your guesses about the results of Tuesday's voting are (probably) as good as mine

& Visual tweet madness continues with rounds 4-7 of the annual tournament of champions

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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.

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.

Primary guesses

My guess is that the Bring Chicago Home referendum will pass — supporters are comparatively well organized and turnout is bound to be light given that there is no U.S. Senate primary in Illinois and the presidential primary season has already given us the major party nominees.

I’m also guessing that the incumbents will beat back primary challengers in the contested U.S. House primaries — Chuy Garcia, Sean Casten, Bill Foster, Mike Bost, and Danny Davis. I doubt Davis will win a majority of 50% of the vote or more given that he has four opponents, two of whom — Kina Collins and Melissa Conyears-Ervin — appear somewhat formidable. But this is not a run-off situation and a plurality will be sufficient to return Davis to Washington.

It’s absurd that we elect a clerk of the Circuit Court, but I’ll guess that Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner Mariyana Spyropoulos will ride the coattails of the Democratic Party endorsement to victory.

Similarly, the backing of the Cook County Democratic Party will be sufficient for Supreme Court Justice Joy Cunningham to prevail in her bid for reelection over 1st District Appellate Justice Jesse Reyes. But I do think Reyes makes a good case that it’s high time for a Latino to have a seat on the state’s high court.

Yet my guess is that her lack of party support will not stop Eileen O'Neill Burke in her race against Clayton Harris for the Democratic nomination for Cook County State’s Attorney.

That’s 9 stabs in the dark. Paid subscribers, post your predictions in comments and I’ll tip my press fedora Thursday to those who have outguessed me.

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

Getting out the student vote

Quite a bit of feedback on “Teachers union crosses the line between pedagogy and politics” in last Thursday’s issue in which I amplified my critique in Tuesday’s issue of a union-led get-our-the-youth-vote rally that seemed aimed at least in part in ginning up support for the Bring Chicago Home ordinance.

Jake H. — I wish the word "hacktivist" wasn't already taken for cyber criminals. I would like to use it for hack activists -- as in, not only shrill and one-sided but really bad at it besides -- who have taken over the Chicago Teachers Union and City Hall.

The indoctrination "field trip" is outrageous. The union’s email to teachers trying to get them to recruit student participants said, "Do you remember your first time voting? Were you nervous? Excited? Confused at what to do? What if, instead of standing in a long line and feeling overwhelmed by a mountain of conflicting information, you were able to get voting support from the candidates themselves and vote for the first time alongside your friends and classmates?"

Yeah, all those pesky opinions and ideas floating around! I guess we could teach civics and give students the tools they need to make sense of current events. Or we could really streamline that process and just tell kids what to think and how to vote.

Zorn — Conflicting information comes at you fast in a democracy. Absorbing it and processing it is what a responsible voter does. Every candidate wants to offer "voting support." So a true voter forum is supposed to leave you feeling at least a little confused. That wording was pretty appalling.

Wendy C. — I don't support political advocacy by public school teachers, but educating students about the political system, including the voting process, is important and part of the required civics class in our high school.

David Leitschuh — The CTU has moved way beyond traditional teacher issues to become a hard leftist advocacy and activist organization. Johnson was their candidate, and with their funding and groundwork, he was elected and the CTU effectively now runs Chicago. Those on the left may be comfortable or even happy with this, but it’s a genuine perversion of our public education system which is supposed to be all about educating the kids.

The back and forth about education led to the perennial discussion of the value of “school choice” and my reiteration of my weariness at simplistic arguments regarding education. It’s important to take a serious look at student performance and consider as many variables as possible before sneering that public schools are failing or cheering that charter/private schools are succeeding. Or cheering that states with unionized teacher workforces have better outcomes than non-unionized teachers. And so on. What is the "secret sauce" that lifts one student population over another? Or what is the hidden anvil that holds another student population down? I ask this of "school choice" people all the time. Can you set aside your leanings -- your fondness for religious education, your hatred for public sector unions -- and seek solutions that don't just involve flattering your pet notions? This prompted the following exchange:

Bob E. If you're really serious about finding the answer as to why school choice works better than assigned attendance area public schools, go visit North Lawndale College Prep Charter High School. I'll be interested to hear your report after your visit, and your conversations with students, staff, administrators and parents.

Zorn -- This is argument by anecdote. I might as well ask you to go to Adlai Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire and tell me why this example of an assigned attendance area public school has far better outcomes than North Lawndale College Prep Charter High School. U.S. News ranks North Lawndale 13,261th our of 17,680 high schools nationwide and Public School Review says it “ranks in the bottom 50% of all schools in Illinois for overall test scores (math proficiency is bottom 50%, and reading proficiency is bottom 50%) . U.S. News ranks Stevenson 201st in the nation and Public School Review says the school “ranks in the top 1% of all schools in Illinois for overall test scores (math proficiency is top 1%, and reading proficiency is top 1%).”

Unfair comparison? Absolutely! Does this tell us anything about the comparative value of public vs. private education? Not in the least! But you get my point.

Curses!

I wrote last week in favor of the Tribune printing “shit” and “fuck” in excerpts from Gregory Royal Pratt’s upcoming book, “The City is Up for Grabs: How Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Led and Lost a City in Crisis.” There was a difference of opinion on this matter, as reflected in this poll result:

Here are some of the dissents:

Peter Zackrison — These are words of frustration, anger and ignorance. In my view we only need to use them if an accurate quote is necessary, otherwise use a wider vocabulary.

If you live in a world where these terms are used for emphasis, I guess you can get off on them. But when these words are the primary verbs, adjectives and nouns, it is just sad and unnecessary.

I also challenge your view that these words are becoming more acceptable. In some writers’ minds maybe, but not in many other situations.

Do you want elementary school teachers to greet their kids, “hi you fuckers now take a seat.” Or when applying for a job, do you ask “ I hear you motherfuckers have a job opening?” Or a patient in a hospital setting “Sorry but your tests tell me you are fucked royally!”

Let’s try for better language in everyday life, you seem to be very diligent in not offending ethnic groups by using offensive terms. Let’s try for the general public as well.

Nancy Meyer – I concur wholly with Peter Zackrison. Additionally, the poll would have been more accurate if "It offends me" had not been the only way to register objection to, ahem, off-color language. Offense suggests objection for a moral reason, as if "I find hearing / seeing those words unnecessarily unpleasant" is insufficient motivation. By the same rationale, stepping in dog droppings is not morally offensive, but it is justifiably repugnant and something I don't want tracked into my house!

Laurence E Siegel -- The problems with coarse language are intellectual laziness and the usage adds to the general downgrading of civility in society. What Eric spotlights is quoting what a public official actually said versus using it in simply reporting a story. We have enough trouble getting what we need to know from government hookahs as it is. But I see no need to make us look less smart as a society than we already are.

Zorn — Joanie Wimmer shared a clip of Warren Zevon’s song “My Shit’s Fucked Up” in which a doctor uses that colorful expression to a patient. And while it’s not specific, it does convey a certain gravity in a pithy way. But of course there are time and place limits on coarse language and I would not treat all vulgarities the same. But in publications aimed at adults, judicious and finely deployed shits and fucks are fine, in my view.

I reject the argument that swearing necessarily reflects a limited vocabulary or a poor ability to express oneself. Profanity can be a rhetorical seasoning, livening and brightening ones discourse.

The use of these major swear words on streaming TV, podcasts and in once staid magazines such as The New Yorker has normalized them to an extent. Knowing when and how to use them to good effect is a skill. And, yes, there is such a thing still as “polite company.”

Biden’s ‘illegal’ gaffe

Speaking of Joanie Wimmer, she and Steven K had the following exchange related to my item about President Joe Biden apologizing after the lefty language police came down on him for for referring in his State of the Union speech to the man accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley as “illegal” instead of “undocumented.”

Steven K — I personally have heard from two people since last Thursday who claim that they were going to vote for Biden, but are now reconsidering because of his sycophantic apology. Maybe they’re the only two people in the country that are so petulant, but I wouldn’t count on it. To much of the nation, this sort of pathological hypersensitivity (and the tendency to acquiesce it) shows that the Democrats simply do not have the emotional wherewithal necessary to lead the nation, and is a prime reason why Trump is leading in the polls.

Joanie Wimmer —Why is it “pathological” to be sensitive to the use of language that dehumanizes or “others” certain people? Why do you think that people who have that sensitivity “do not have the emotional wherewithal to lead the nation”? Why do conservatives tend to believe that being insensitive to others and their feelings is some sort of strength that will enable them to lead the nation? Is that why so many Republicans come off as arrogant, nasty, and unfeeling? There is a cultural world-outlook among conservatives that “feelings don’t matter.” But, of course, they do matter, and in some ways they matter the most.

Steven K. — “Pathological” applies because of the obsessiveness and irrationality that is exhibited by this trait. The irrationality is evidenced by the fact that you seem to think that a perfectly benign and accurate descriptor of something should be declared out of bounds on the grounds that it “dehumanizes”, even though it clearly doesn’t. As has already been noted, the suspect in Laken Riley’s slaying is known to have entered the country illegally. He is, therefore, an “illegal immigrant.” “illegal alien,” or, for purposes of brevity, an “illegal… Nothing complicated here, just words being deployed to describe reality. On the other hand, one word that most certainly does not describe reality here is “undocumented,” given the suspect’s established criminal history And yet, the word police have taken it upon themselves to instruct us that this term is the one that is acceptable. And progressives lecture Trump supporters about how divorced from reality they are?

In any case, this is all hair splitting. The point in the item was to illustrate how a not insignificant element of the Democratic Party seems to be more interested in tending to an inane and infantile hang up of theirs than they are, you know, keeping Trump from getting re-elected. The future of our democracy may be at stake, but damn if we’re not going to scratch that itch!

Joanie Wimmer — Calling a person an “illegal” is not “words being deployed to describe reality.” I imagine you have done things during your life that were against the law. Almost everyone has pleaded guilty to a speeding ticket, or a ticket for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident. Some people have pleaded guilty to DUI. Yet no one calls those people “illegals.” To do so would suggest that the most significant aspect of the person, the thing that characterizes the person is lawlessness. Calling people “illegals” is an attempt to dehumanize or “other” immigrants. It’s not inane or infantile to try to adopt language that isn’t used to promote an “us and them” mentality towards a group of people that promotes bigotry against that group.

Steven K. — Someone who enters this (or any) country illegally and continues to reside there is an illegal alien, resident, immigrant, take your pick (my Democratic uncle refers to them as “alien invaders”, but I digress). If the suspect had moved back to Venezuela and continued to indulge in his favorite pastimes of criminal mischief and ultra violence there, then he would not have been an illegal. We are told by the whiners of wokeness that “undocumented” would be an “acceptable” descriptor, but clearly he was documented as evidenced by his established criminal record in this country, so “undocumented” really would not be accurate now would it? And let’s face it, with the laws of euphemism creep being what they are, it’s only a matter of time before “undocumented” becomes a verboten term from which we are all supposed to recoil in horror.

Joanie Wimmer — You talk about “his established criminal record in this country.” What crimes has he been convicted of?

Steven K — He may not have been convicted of anything, but he’s been arrested multiple times in less than two years, so he has certainly been “documented”.

Joanie Wimmer — So he has no criminal record. Okay.

Steven K. — So I guess I should have said that he has an arrest record. Seeing as how you’ve suddenly become such a stickler for accurate word usage, then you now must not have any problem with identifying this scumbag as an “illegal” and dispensing with the “undocumented” horseshit, right? Ooh, “scumbag”, that’s kind of harsh! I should really try to find more humanizing and inclusive language to describe a person whose singular flaw is an apparent tendency to abduct young ladies and bludgeon them to death every now and then, but I honestly couldn’t come up with one that seemed to fit better. Sorry.

Joanie Wimmer — I have this quaint notion that people are presumed innocent until adjudicated guilty. It’s an American thing. You know, the constitution.

Zorn — I’m not totally onboard with the “person-first” language decree — that which says. for example, “person experiencing homelessness” is categorically different from “homeless person” or “person with prior justice system involvement” is categorically different than “former prisoner.” So I don’t consider “illegal immigrant” to be particularly dehumanizing or othering when someone is in the country in violation of immigration laws.

I try to go along with the program, though. It doesn’t kill me to add a few extra words — as in “…a person living in the United States without proper documentation” — if it ruffles fewer feathers. At the same time, I try also not to be censorious or indignant about those who aren’t up on the latest enlightened terminology.

Meanwhile, the quite left is more exercised about “illegal” than the ultra right is about Donald Trump invoking the possibility of a “bloodbath” if he’s not reelected this fall. They’re pretending that he simply meant a “bloodbath” in the automotive industry, which makes no economic or rhetorical sense. “Bloodbath” is not a term you get to use if you’re referring to the cop-beating insurrectionists from Jan. 6 as “patriots.”

Putting the Sun-Times budget into perspective

Jens Zorn — You took note of the Sun-Times promotional campaign that says it costs $106,000 a day to produce the paper. That’s $38.7 million a year, which is less than the annual salaries of at least the the top10 NFL quarterbacks.

Zorn — Yes, Dad, and of course advertising and subscription/membership money contributes a great deal to that daily and annual cost. We’re not talking about an obscene amount of support necessary to keep local newspapers afloat, and certainly quarterbacks, other highly paid athletes or titans of industry could find the cash in their sofa cushions to do so.

Lower West Side? Yes, in fact

Lou Berardi — I noticed the Tribune has started using the term “Lower West Side” to describe where one of the migrant shelter is located. That’s a term used to describe Manhattan and not Chicago’s Southwest Side. It just sounds weird. Is this some journalist from New York that’s confused?

Zorn — Several readers brought this to my attention, but in fact the Encyclopedia of Chicago has an entry on the Lower West Side:

Community Area 31, 3 miles SW of Loop. The Lower West Side has traditionally served as a point of entry to Chicago for working-class immigrants from a broad range of ethnic groups. The area is bounded on the south and east by the Chicago River, and on the north and west by the Burlington Northern railroad tracks. Though the area remained somewhat isolated for much of its history, its neighborhoods—especially Pilsen and Heart of Chicago—have been vibrant and dynamic enclaves for generations of Bohemians, Germans, Poles, and Mexicans.

Better Galway Girl

Bob E — I find the Steve Earle version of “Galway Girl,” last week’s Tune of the Week, to be mediocre. This version by Mundy with Sharon Shannon is excellent:

Zorn — It’s great. But “Galway Girl” is Earle’s song so I thought I’d post his version even though it doesn’t rock as hard as Mundy with Sharon Shannon or, for that matter, the cover by Fiddlers Green. This “Galway Girl” is not to be confused with Ed Sheeran’s “Galway Girl.”

A reminder that I have decided to turn the Tune of the Week feature over to Picayune Sentinel subscribers for at least the next few months. In the comments section — available to paid supporters — leave your nominations along with a YouTube link and at least a few sentences explaining why this song is meaningful or delightful to you. Make the case, as several of you already have.

I’m hoping for and will give precedence to songs that first appeared in this millennium.

Ya gotta see these tweets!

This week we continue with the visual tweets element of Tweet Madness 2024. All the entires below won a previous contest or, to fill out the brackets, are runners-up/honorable mentions. Pick your favorite in each set of five. Those winners along with winners of previous and subsequent sets will advance to the semifinal rounds. The top two winners in the semifinal rounds will be in the Final Four in the April 4 Picayune Sentinel.

ROUND 4

ROUND 5

ROUND 6

ROUND 7

Rounds 1-3 were last Tuesday and subscribers can still vote. Look for rounds 8-10 next Tuesday

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media.

There’s still time to vote in the Round of 32 in the Tweet Madness bracket tournament. But look for the Tweet 16 pairings on Thursday.

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