Zorn: Chicago's Democratic convention will now amount to a pep rally after the game is over

& downstate counties want to secede from Illinois -- *yawn*

5-30-2024 (issue No. 143)

This week:

• Democrats’ premature nomination vote reinforces the dull vapidity of national political conventions

• Last week’s winning tweet

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked on downstate counties that want to leave the state, the Pope’s flimsy apology, the cop who killed a dog, the latest developments in the Alito flag flap and more

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

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

• Mary Schmich — Help in making your summer to-do list

• Big brands or store brands? When is it worth it to buy the brand name product?

• Friends don’t let friends fall for stupid Facebook hoaxes

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week — Jon Hansen guest hosts and we talk about the DNC, the new state budget deal and more

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

• Re:Tweets — The winning visual tweet and this week’s contest finalists in the convention and “dad tweets” categories

• Good Sports — Goodbye to bad, bad Bill Walton; an update on the impressively, tantalizingly bad Chicago White Sox

• Tune of the Week — “All in Good Time” by Iron & Wine with Fiona Apple, nominated by Sue Marshall

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.

Democrats’ premature nomination vote reinforces the dull vapidity of national political conventions

Rick Pearson in the Tribune:

Less than three months before the Democratic National Convention comes to Chicago, the event is already losing a significant portion of its celebratory luster as national Democrats on Tuesday said they plan to virtually nominate President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris before the convention to comply with ballot access laws in the crucial swing state of Ohio.

It’s unbelievable that in all the planning for this bloated, swollen, unnecessary and boring event, no one at the Democratic National Committee thought to look into the obvious question of ballot-access deadlines for party nominees, just about as unbelievable as Ohio’s early deadline that threatened to keep Biden off the November ballot.

The early, virtual nomination process designed to meet Ohio’s deadline assures that even less of the goings-on here in Chicago in mid-August will be of any moment. I guess we’ll hear nomination speeches for the already-nominated President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and maybe a re-created roll call and absurd balloon drop to celebrate. The acceptance speeches could be interesting. I’ll be sure to watch them.

It seems to me that the possible risks for Chicago and for the Democratic Party in holding the convention here this summer are greater than the potential rewards. The city will get an influx of tourists but also of protesters aimed at getting attention — “Make bruises from Chicago police batons the 2024 back to school fall fashion!” says one of the slogans of Behind Enemy Lines, a group determined to shut down the convention through street protests. The violence is unlikely to be as bad as it was during the 1968 Democratic convention here, but this time, ubiquitous cellphone video cameras and social media will amplify every skirmish and give the city and the party a black eye.

There was never going to be much luster to this glorified pep rally, but Pearson is right in that whatever there might have been has been further diminished.

Last week’s winning tweet

Not to brag, but I've been told I'm a fine one to talk. — @ddsmidt

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll. And here is the link to the bonus dad-tweets poll

News & Views

News: Voters in Madison County and Jersey County (near St. Louis) will vote this November on a symbolic advisory referendum on the November ballot asking if they want to secede from Illinois.

View: I get it. If I lived in a liberal area of a deeply red state, I’d chafe at a legislature that barely took notice of my views, and I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to flip my middle finger at them with an otherwise meaningless vote.

I was surprised to learn in the coverage that 27 counties in Illinois have already passed similar referenda, nearly all in the southern half of the state.

NBC 5 graphic

I was also surprised that Gov. JB Pritzker bothered to publicly express his disappointment and insulted everyone’s intelligence by declaring, “Madison County is just as important to our state as Chicago is.” Madison County has less than 1/10th the population of Chicago (and Jersey County has about 1/10th the population of Madison County).

These efforts are going nowhere. Article IV Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution says:

No new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Italics mine.

And anyway, studies show that nearly all downstate counties — including Madison and Jersey — get more state tax dollars back than their residents and businesses send to Springfield. The chart below from “The Politics of Public Budgeting in Illinois,” a 2018 study from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, shows that Cook County gets 90 cents back on every dollar paid in state taxes, collar counties get 53 cents back and far south counties get $2.81 back.

The folks at New Illinois State, an organization that “envisions a new state free from a tyrannical form of government,” issued a three-page rebuttal to the Simon Institute study.

I’d say let ‘em go except that they’d inevitably put two more Republicans in the U.S. Senate and further tilt the Electoral College toward the Republican Party.

News: Pope Francis apologizes (kinda sorta) for use of a homophobic slur.

View: His apology was “to those who felt offended” and therefore a particularly weak expression of regret.

According to news reports, the pope said seminaries were already too full of “frociaggine,” which translates from Italian to “faggotry,” when underscoring in a closed-door meeting with bishops that gay men should be kept out of the priesthood.

Reuters:

In a 2005 document, released under Francis's late predecessor Benedict XVI, the Vatican said the Church could admit into the priesthood those who had clearly overcome homosexual tendencies for at least three years.

The document said practicing homosexuals and those with "deep-seated" gay tendencies and those who "support the so-called gay culture" should be barred.

I’m not Catholic so my opinion about gays and priesthood — and the requirement for priestly celibacy, the requirement that priests be male and the church’s opposition to surrogacy - while probably obvious to readers, is not relevant.

News: An off-duty Chicago police officer shot and killed a neighbor’s dog that had attacked her dog.

View: There is blame to go around here. The Sun-Times reported:

On the morning of April 21, Officer Carmen Mostek was walking her dog on a leash when her 68-year-old neighbor’s mixed-breed pit bull slipped out the front door and got into a fight with the corgi at 29th Street and Normal Avenue.

First of all, a dog on the loose does not get “into a fight” with a dog on a leash. a dog on the loose attacks a dog on a leash. And the owner of the attacking dog, Kent Maynard, made a grave error in letting his aggressive pet slip out his front door.

A video of the event as recorded by a neighbor’s surveillance camera begins with Maynard’s dog pouncing on the corgi and Mostek drawing her gun. In less than two seconds, Maynard, the owner of the mixed-breed pit bull, dives into the scene to attempt to wrestle his dog away from the corgi.

Maynard is on the ground trying to hold his dog back at the instant Mostek fires without warning, six seconds into the video:

According to the Sun-Times, the police report said Mostek “attempted to get the pit bull off of her dog ... with negative results.” Maynard “attempted to help, (but) with negative results,” which is wh , Mostek said, she felt she had to fire her gun and kill Maynard’s dog.

The video shows Mostek running away with her corgi rather than offering aid or seeing if Maynard was OK. An anguished Maynard yells at her as she flees, “You fucking idiot! Why? You just killed my dog!”

She is, indeed, a fucking idiot. She fired her gun quickly, without making any attempt to separate the dog, and her shot came extremely close to Maynard, who luckily was not struck. Then she fled. Wretched judgment, poor impulse control, cowardice. She doesn’t deserve to wear the badge.

Maynard has filed a federal lawsuit against the police department and the city.

News: The Washington Post knew for three years that an upside-down American flag had flown over U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s home in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but chose not to publish the story, which recently came to light in The New York Times.

View: This was shameful dereliction of journalistic duty by the Post. The extent to which the paper irresponsibly ignored this story came clear in a follow-up report in The New York Times that revealed Alito’s explanation for displaying the international signal for distress was inaccurate:

The justice told Fox News that his wife hoisted the flag in response to (a neighbor’s) vulgar insult. A text message and the police call — corroborated by Fairfax County authorities — indicate, however, that the name-calling took place on Feb. 15, weeks after the inverted flag was taken down.

I guess it doesn’t matter. Alito is gonna Alito. He makes his own rules and is the sole judge of his impartiality. “Alito rejects calls to quit Supreme Court cases on Trump and Jan. 6 because of flag controversies,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Kinda gives the expression “contempt of court” new meaning.

News: Illinois Senate President Don Harmon accedes to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s request to kill a popular bill in the General Assembly based on Johnson’s assurance that he’ll do what the bill calls for anyway.

View: I’ll remind you of this next time the Democrats preen about their fidelity to democracy.

From the Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner:

The legislation to extend by two years, to 2027, an existing moratorium on shutting down Chicago Public Schools buildings had breezed through the House in a 92-8 vote and also was passed by a Senate committee.

Harmon put a brick on the bill based on a letter from Johnson that said CPS “will not close selective enrollment schools nor will the District make disproportionate budget cuts to selective enrollment schools. The District will maintain admissions standards at selective enrollment schools. Any narrative to the contrary is patently false.”

Harmon went along. “This is a business based on trust and in my view the mayor promised more than the bill did.”

But why not a belt-and-suspenders approach? Trust but compel?

The measure was filed by state Rep. Margaret Croke after Johnson’s school board last year announced its intention to focus on neighborhood schools in a forthcoming five-year plan. …

In a statement to the Tribune on Friday, Croke, a Chicago Democrat, said she hoped the Senate would realize that Johnson’s letter “falls horribly short from how it is being spun” and without the legislation, she worries selective enrollment schools would be vulnerable to changes to their admissions criteria and “disproportionate cuts will be made to magnet schools and charter schools will eventually be closed.”

This is a win for the flailing and unpopular mayor.

Meanwhile, on the Democrats not all that interested in democracy front comes the measure recently passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. JB Pritzker that “put an end to the long-standing Illinois practice of letting a political party slate candidates for the general election in contests that are open because no one from that party ran in the primary election,” as WTTW-Ch. 11’s Amanda Vinicky wrote.

It’s almost certainly unnecessary. If members of an opposing party thought they had a chance of winning, one or more of them would run in the primary. Getting slated is “the least successful way to pursue office,” Harmon said. “We are not aware of a single candidate who was placed on the ballot in this capacity who ended up sitting in the Senate.”

So why not let a party put someone on the ballot, you know, in the name of giving voters at least the illusion of choice?

“There is no notice and no public process involved in this selection at all,” Harmon said.

Spare me.

The Democrats simply don’t want to have to spend one dime of campaign cash on candidates in slam-dunk districts, and that’s a terrible reason for such a law.

Last week, thankfully, Sangamon County Judge Gail Noll granted a preliminary injunction against the law, and the ideals of democracy — though not the Democrats — demand that it be held unconstitutional.

News: Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, U.N. ambassador and Republican presidential hopeful, was in Israel over the Memorial Day weekend and wrote “Finish Them!” on an artillery shell.

View: I hope the pro-Palestinian protesters who are raging about Joe Biden and saying they’ll never vote for him see this story and come to their damn senses by November. Sure it’ll be a tough vote, but Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants are far greater threats to the Palestinian people than Biden, and those are your only two choices. arly

Land of Linkin’

• The Journal of the American Medical Association: “Evaluating Firearm Violence After New Jersey’s Cash Bail Reform.” Conclusion: “There was no change in fatal and nonfatal gun violence in New Jersey after substantial declines in jail incarceration under bail reform. These findings suggest that bail reform may be an important tool for reducing jail incarceration without exacerbating community gun violence.”

• “Why College is still cool” is a thoughtful take on higher education by Substacker Peter Darling, whose weekly “Specifics” publication highlights “things that make your life better. Easier, more pleasant, safer, more efficient, and once in a while, wonderful.” Using elite Swarthmore College as his example, Darling argues that “higher education, at its best, is not about getting a job. It’s about becoming a better human being. How? By having someone who’s the best in their field look you right in the face and tell you you’re wrong, or you need to read two hundred more pages, or you’re missing the point. … They’re not talking to a classroom full of people, one of whom happens to be you. They’re talking to you.”

• Remember the big public debate in the 1990s about teaching “Ebonics” — Black English — in schools? Last weekend, I found, in the papers floating around my parents' home, a copy of a 1997 column by Mike Royko that begins: “I be tired hearin’ abouts Ebonics. I dislikes hearing about it no more. Some momma, she writes me and ax why I don’t write no column in Ebonics. I tells the hoe that be wack because I don’t know how to talk Ebonics. I talks Honkyonics.” I can’t imagine that passing editorial muster today. The Reader’s Michael Miner weighed in on a different Royko column in that era that got a lot of well deserved pushback.

• “The 10 Rules of Good Ex-Etiquette for Parents” at Bonus Families. “After a break-up, parents often ask for a list, something to which they can refer, possibly hang on the refrigerator, that will help them deal with their ex in a positive manner–especially if they are really angry and their kids are around.”

• “Amazon Returns Have Gone to Hell” writes Ian Bogost in the Atlantic, but I’ve got to say that my experience with returning items via Amazon has been comparatively heavenly.

• You’ll have to wait four weeks for season 3 of “The Bear,” but here’s the trailer:

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:

■ Greg Sargent at The New Republic: “When Trump elevates one of his supporters for celebrating the idea that a second term will result in ‘blowjob liberals’ being ‘done’ and ‘gone’ … Trump is plainly talking about you and me.”

■ Poynter media writer Tom Jones analyzes the embarrassing revelation that The Washington Post sat for more than three years on the story of an insurrectionist flag flying over the home of Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito.

■ The New York Times reviews a recording of a call to police from a young couple claiming they were being harassed by Alito’s wife.

■ At The American Prospect, cartoonist Tom Tomorrow channels Alito: “Look, I keep telling you—I don’t pay any attention to what my wife does! I’m not entirely certain I would recognize her on the street!”

■ The New Republic’s David Masciotra: “Ted Kennedy warned us about Samuel Alito. He was ignored.”

■ “President Pritzker?” Chicago magazine’s Edward Robert McClelland: Whatever November’s outcome, “the Democratic Party will need a new candidate next time around. And our governor is already positioning himself for a run.”

■ Pondering OpenAI’s use of a voice that sounded a lot like Scarlett Johansson, who’d already told the company “no,” Vox asked the company’s ChatGPT what to call it “when a man tells the public that a woman is wrong about his actions … after she publicly accuses him of doing something she didn’t consent to.”

■ The Onion: “Jerky, 7-Fingered Scarlett Johansson Appears In Video To Express Full-Fledged Approval Of OpenAI.”

■ Popular Information: “Training materials produced by the Florida Department of Education direct middle and high school teachers to indoctrinate students in the tenets of Christian nationalism.”

■ Google, disenshittified: Tedium columnist Ernie Smith has built what he calls “a pseudo-search engine” that connects you directly to “essentially Google, minus the crap,” and you can try it here.

■ Advisorator offers three steps to fix Google search on your device.

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

Mary Schmich: Make those summer resolutions now

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is a recent offering based on a 2021 column:

“And the summer’s come again.”

That’s a line from Jennifer Warnes’ song “Lights of Lousianne,” one of the best summer songs ever written, and it starts pecking at my brain at about this time every year, along with all the existential questions stirred by the thought.

Summer. Again. How do you want to spend it?

Or, in the words of Mary Oliver’s famous poem “The Summer Day”: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Before I carry on about summer, however, I want to acknowledge that there is a subspecies of human that hates summer. Through the years I’ve received many emails from these passionate anti-summer people. Summer’s too hot, they say. Too muggy. Too buggy. To them I say today: I respect your feelings. Take comfort in the thought that winter will be back soon.

Meanwhile, please, let us summer lovers have our brief torrid affair.

We summer lovers are the people who appreciate that up here in the cold climates, summer comes with unique promise and opportunity. Long light. Reliable warmth. Bare skin. Open-toed shoes. Sweat. Summer lovers like sweat, even if we complain about it.

Summer, in short, is our liberation.

So on this Memorial Day weekend, which is the unofficial opening of summer, it’s time to write down some summer resolutions.

Summer resolutions, like all resolutions, aren’t vows or guarantees. They’re simply intentions and guides. Like New Year’s resolutions, we make them in the hopes that they’ll increase our chances of doing what we want to do.

Given the brevity of the season, the sooner you name your summer resolutions, the likelier you are to keep them. So sometime in the next few days, grab a pen and paper and write down how you’d like to spend this one and only summer of 2024.

Here are some of my resolutions:

• Go watch the sunrise at the lake. At least once.

• Sit outside and watch the sunset. At least sometimes.

• Eat outside whenever possible.

• Whenever possible, walk or bike instead of driving.

• Tend some flowers. Some people have gardens. I have only a porch and pots, but they suffice. Summer without some flowers to call your own may as well be winter.

• Go to the farmers market as often as possible. A farmers market is more than a shopping experience. It’s a communion with nature, a chance for city dwellers to remember where their food comes from and who grows it.

• Go kayaking on the Chicago River.

• Get in water. A pool, a pond, the lake. Summer’s not summer until you’ve gotten wet.

• Visit parks around the city.

• Go to a concert in Millennium Park. There’s no better way to see this great city we live in than to lie on the grass next to skyscrapers listening to some of the world’s best musicians.

I’ve heard it said that any summer resolution you haven’t kept by the Fourth of July is one you won’t keep. I disagree. I once planted flowers on Labor Day, knowing they’d be soon be dead. Short pleasure is better than no pleasure at all.

But better to start soon. As that great Jennifer Warnes song about summer says, “Our lives go by like sparks are flying.”

Brand name or store brand?

A conversation in my comment threads about inflation touched on the high cost of Cheerios — really all breakfast cereals these days — which in turn prompted me to observe that some knock-off cereals are as good as the famous brands, but that no imitator has yet to exactly match Cheerios.

Honey Nut Scooters, pictured above, are decent, but they’re no Honey Nut Cheerios. Though they do put me in mind of the old internet meme that pointed out that the names of some of these off-brand cereals — also including Marshmallow Mateys (ersatz Lucky Charms), Tootie Fruities (imitation Froot Loops) and Frosted Mini-Spooners (discount Frosted Mini-Wheats) — sound like an old British Army major trying to find polite euphemisms for gay men.

I am far from the first to muse on this topic. See:

• We Tasted 9 Name-Brand Cereals Against Their Generic Version. Here’s What We Found. (Taste of Home)

• Which Generic Cereals Actually Taste Better? (Thrillist)

• Cheerios beats store-brand 'Os' for taste (Consumer Reports)

• Which Is Better: Cheerios Or The Aldi Brand? (Mashed)

My personal take is that generic bran flakes, corn flakes and shredded wheat are just as good as the famous brands, but that most of the others fall short. In blind taste tests I believe that store brand cheeses — sliced, shredded, cottage and cream — are equal to the branded varieties, and that there’s little drop in quality when buying knock-off tomato paste, orange juice, jelly and eggs. It’s also worth noting that Costco’s Kirkland coffee is roasted by Starbucks.

When I asked on Facebook which name brand products are truly worth it, my opinionated friends weighed in. Here’s a sample of responses, lightly edited:

Geri Ann — Summit brand diet cola, found at Aldi, tastes pretty darn close to Diet Coke.

Chris Tozer — Kellogg’s Corn Flakes are much better than any other brand I've tried.

Barbara Brotman — Jewel’s Signature line of bran flakes are excellent.

Jeremy McGuire — When I worked in a Holsum bakery, I observed the process of branding. Bread moved along the line and was bagged with the Holsum brand, then the line stopped and the bags were changed to the Super Valu brand. After a significant run, the bags were changed again to the black and white generic packaging. Same bread, different package. I will be willing to bet that taste testers preferred the Holsum brand and disliked the generic.

Ellen Shepard — I'm here to say that the off brands of old-fashioned oats are just not as good as Quaker. So there.

Bruce Linderman — Check out the Kirkland labeled liquors! (Hint: they’re all premium brands that are privately labeled).

Janine Junttila Orrico — Cheez-its have to be real.

Nancy Watkins — Jewel's version of Honey Bunches of Oats became my preference before I gave up all that sugar.

Georgia C. Garvey — I like Mariano’s store brand salsa much better than Tostitos or Pace or anything like that. Their brand of marinara is also excellent.

Tom Schlak — I have found Meijer's "Frederick's" private label products to be excellent in every one I've tried. Their Signature coffee blend is my go-to. And the crackers and prepackaged deli are really good.

Mark Komissarouk — Aldi cereals in general, like corn flakes and “crispy rice,“are at least as good as Kellogg's counterparts and maybe even better, and way way cheaper.

Ana-Maria Roback-Troast — Brand-name peanut butter is much better than no name.

Tony Galati — As far as paper products, Bounty is worth however much they're post-covid-overcharging you. On the other hand, Target brand toilet paper is every bit as good as Northern.

Ann Hilton Fisher — Viva paper towels all the way. But Meijer’s toilet paper is excellent.

Michael Weiland — I am a fan of Quaker Oat Squares. Target had a store-brand equivalent but it wasn't quite as good. Alas, our Target no longer carries the store brand or the Quaker version. A year ago they carried three Quaker varieties.

Mary Tabatowski — I love Quaker Oat Squares enough to have looked into why they are no longer available. Salmonella! Hopefully they'll be back soon, though Quaker can't say when for sure. No store brands compare!

The disappearance of Quaker Oat Squares after a salmonella recall in January is indeed dismaying, as the knock-off squares really do pale by comparison. I have to wonder how long it takes to clean the Oat Square machine.

I’m quite interested in PS readers’ verdicts on these and other products, and will publish more responses in the Picayune Plus next Tuesday. Leave a note in comments or use this email link

Friends don’t let friends fall for stupid Facebook hoaxes

Over and over lately I have seen people on my Facebook feed reposting this message:

If you are thinking of getting off FB because of the volume of sales ads and trash stuff, hold your finger anywhere in this post and click ′copy’. Go to your page where it says ‘What's on your mind?’ Tap your finger anywhere in the blank field. Click paste. This upgrades the system. Good bye annoying ads and Hello new and old friends! Going to try it and see what happens!

This is a complete, ridiculous, obvious hoax, along with this one —

Deadline tomorrow!!! Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from tomorrow. Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed. It costs nothing for a simple copy and paste, better safe than sorry. Channel 13 News talked about the change in Facebook’s privacy policy. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents …

— which I’ve seen less often lately.

I gently shame those who pass along these messages because they are so obviously false and so easy to Google.

Minced Words

Guest host Jon Hansen guided the conversation on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast with Cate Plys, Marj Halperin and me on the big local stories of the week. 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.

Quotables

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

There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment, or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route. When, as Mercy Otis Warren would say, "The checks of conscience are thrown aside and a deformed picture of the soul is revealed." The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems. When, in fact, with him, you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction — "a bigger delusion," James Baldwin would say, the “author and finisher” of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesied. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer. — Ken Burns delivering the commencement address at Brandeis University on May 19

So Trump says he supports Israel doing whatever it must to crush Palestinian resistance, and he'll personally crush pro-Palestinian protesters and deport them (or at least try), but cool, tell me again how you're gonna not vote for Biden for the sake of the Palestinian resistance. — Tim Wise

I'm perfectly fine voting for the lesser of two evils if it means we get less evil. — @WildeThingy

At the end of 2023, Americans were paying at least 30% more for beef, pork, and poultry products than they were in 2020. Why? Near-monopoly power! Just four companies now control processing of 80 percent of beef, nearly 70 percent of pork, and almost 60 percent of poultry. So of course, it’s easy for them to coordinate price increases. And this goes well beyond the grocery store. In 75 percent of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago. — Robert Reich on “greedflation”

Courts work because people trust judges. Taking sides in this way erodes that trust. In four decades as a federal judge, I have known scores, possibly hundreds, of federal trial and appellate judges pretty well. I can’t think of a single one, no matter who appointed her or him, who has engaged or would engage in conduct like that. — Michael Ponsor, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on the politically freighted flags flown at the homes of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito

Re: Tweets

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:

(NOTE, due to an editing error the winning tweet did not appear and will appear next Thursday along with the winner of next week’s poll.)

The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:

• I was on a sofa next to my wife who was eating a snack and typing on her phone. I heard my phone ping in the kitchen where it was charging, so I went to check for messages. The text was from my wife. She’d written, "Bring me a drink on your way back.” — @dadgivesjokes

• Whoever named them “fitting rooms” had a lot of nerve. — @JMoneySlimer

• A cool way to answer the phone is “Dracula?” And when they tell you who is actually calling you say, “OK, phew!” — @ghostdraculas

• I totally get it, Nature Valley Bar. I also pretend to be healthy and crumble under the slightest pressure. — @adamgreattweet

• Imagine picking up tongs and not clicking them together to make sure they work. — @dooz_er

• Sometimes when I'm looking up restaurant reviews and comparing menus I think to myself, "That light was green, right?" — @mandel_angela

• Please do not read anything into the flags my wife flies over our house. They are full of lies, or at least lack important context. — @alexlumaga

• I tell my kids to charge their iPads and then I charge them. Because who’s really punished when the batteries are dead? — @itssherifield

• Parenting is a lot like talking to an automated phone attendant. You're hopeful at first, but then just end up repeating yourself and yelling. — @RodLacroix

• Research is preliminary, but we estimate the number of crimes solved by boy detectives to be somewhere in the neighborhood of zero. — @IamJackBoot

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

Bonus dad-tweets poll, apologies tendered in advance:

• Dua Lipa is a fantastic singer and Mario's advice to Luigi when he wants to get on a slightly higher platform. 

• Elevators frighten me. I take steps to avoid them.

• My cousin says he can cure people of overeating. For $50 a day, he’ll follow you around, and any time he sees you with junk food, he’ll stab you with a fork. He calls it “snackupuncture.”

• Doctor: Hello. Thanks for being patient Me: Hello. Thanks for being doctor. 

• Mountains aren’t just funny, they are hill areas.

• Neighbor: My daughter is in Pre-K. Me: So she’s in J?

• I got amnesia when a boomerang hit me in the head. But it's all coming back to me now. 

• What kind of car does a sheep drive?A Lamborghini.Just kidding. Sheep can't afford a Lambo’. They just take an Ewe-ber. 

• Getting a clear photo of Sasquatch is no small feat.

• What do you call a moose with no name? Anonymoose

Vote here and check the current results in the dad-tweets poll.

Attribution note: I have found over the years that so many of these dad tweets are stolen, borrowed or otherwise so unoriginal that I don’t attribute them. I will correct the record by adding an attribution is anyone wants to make the case for originality.

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media. And I will continue to call the platform Twitter if only to spite Elon Musk:

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Good Sports

He wasn’t the ‘baddest ever,’ but Bill Walton was pretty darn cool

When I was in high school, I had taped up on the inside of my locker the page from Sports Illustrated’s 1973 college basketball season preview issue featuring a picture of UCLA center Bill Walton with the headline, "He Just May Be The Baddest Ever." 

I idolized the guy, who was one of the most dominant collegiate basketball players ever and agreeably countercultural. As the center for my high school team, I aspired — with very modest success — to emulate his feathery touch around the basket and clever footwork. Check out the Walton highlights from the 1973 NCAA championship game:

News this week of his death at age 71 accordingly hit me harder than most celebrity deaths.

I can’t find an image of that Sports Illustrated page anywhere online, and a bit of perspective would have reminded the headline writer that, even by then, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were "badder" big men than Walton. And since then, of course, we’ve seen LeBron James and Michael Jordan in the “greatest of all time” conversation. This conversation never includes Walton, who was dogged by injuries during his pro career, but who nevertheless made the roster of the 50 greatest NBA players of all time.

He was cool. But for coolest NBA big man ever, I have to hand the trophy to Abdul-Jabbar, who has become an astute political commentator in his retirement.

The No-No Sox

As long as the race remains close — which it may not — I will offer you comparison standings of the 2024 White Sox with the 2003 Detroit Tigers and the 1962 New York Mets, teams that have defined futility for more than 80 years, and the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, the worst team in baseball’s modern era (20th century on).

After 57 games:

YEAR TEAM RECORD GB WINNING PERCENTAGE

1916 A’s 17-40 xx -- .298 (.235 full season)

1962 Mets 16-41 1 .281 (.250 full season)

2003 Tigers 16-41 1 .281 (.265 full season)

2024 White Sox 15-42 2 .263 (season so far)

I’m a converted Sox fan, but I’m taking some delight in how interestingly awful they are this season — now on an 8-game losing streak — and am now rooting for them to keep losing and to make history. What else is left for this season? And maybe they’ll bounce off the bottom the way the Tigers did, going from their terrible 2003 to the World Series in 2006 — or like the Mets did, winning the World Series just seven years after their humiliating 1962 season.

If and when the Sox have at least a three-game lead over this ignominious field, I’ll discontinue this weekly feature.

Eyes again on Nelly Korda

For those intrigued by my recent post on LPGA superstar Nelly Korda, set your DVRs this weekend for U.S. Women’s Open coverage on NBC to see if the world’s top-ranked woman golfer can continue her amazing year.

Tune of the Week

I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers or email to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you. The following nomination is from Sue Marshall of downstate McDonough County:

This beautiful piece caught my attention as I was weeding while listening to Undercurrents Radio, which streams a real potpourri of music. This one — “All in Good Time,” a new song by Sam Beam (who performs under the name “Iron & Wine”) with Fiona Apple — left me in tears in the weeds. It's a beautifully written ode about life in all of its ups and downs, euphoric and despondent, roller coaster ways.

There is an anthemic quality to the song, and I can see it being sung by thousands of youngsters at big arenas, hands in the air. When I read the lyrics here, I got out the tissues. I guess at almost 71, one gets nostalgic about this topic. It's been on my laptop for a daily listen for a week.

All in good time, I drifted away
I ran my mouth 'til I'd nothin' to say
You broke my heart, then I was okay
All in good time. ...
 
All in good time, our plan went to shit
I told my future by reading your lips
You wore my ring until it didn't fit
All in good time

Zorn addendum — I’m glad for this reminder of Iron & Wine/Beam, which put me in mind of his 2004 song “Each Coming Night.” I will feature it as a Tune of the Week one of these days.

What’s with a guy calling himself Iron & Wine? In 2011, Beam explained the origin in an interview with Spin:

Back in ’98 or so when I was in film school I was working on lighting for a movie in Georgia, out in the middle of nowhere at a gas station. Inside the gas station they had a bunch of old home remedies like castor oil, and one of them was a protein supplement called Beef, Iron & Wine. I just dropped the Beef part. I recognized that a lot in my writing I’m trying to show both sides of the coin — the sour and sweet. Iron & Wine seemed to fit with that duality and I thought it would be more interesting to call the project that rather than use Sam Beam. I never tried the stuff, though. Hell no.

Beef is high in iron, so the Beef part of the name of that supplement seems redundant. “Beef & Wine” sounds like a restaurant.

Keep those nominations coming!

Consult the complete Tune of the Week archive!

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