I’m a 1A absolutist. A vanity plate celebrating the pogram Oct 7 is repulsive. If someone wants to have a poster or bumper sticker celebrating the murder and rape of civilian Jews that’s free speech - the state doesn’t necessarily need to sanction it. Kristallnacht was Nov 9-10 —same scenario.
A Oct 7 plate is no different than one displaying a swastika.
This may sound naive, but has anyone considered that an "obviously" incendiary license plate could have been chosen before the 2023 Hamas attack, or for some other reason? For decades I've been grateful my daughter was born before her 10/7 due date, because it would have marked the tenth anniversary of a close friend's suicide.. During the previous century I very well might have bought a memorial 10/7 plate myself..
After thousands of years of history, is ANY date (or letter combination) guaranteed free of potential malicious interpretation? You focus on Kristallnacht's atrocities, Tom; I smile at my husband's birthday. We each see what we look for.
There are various viewpoints here in reply to this. I have a different viewpoint. Many people are always concerned about government overreach into their privacy. So how they respond? Their entire lives are posted on license plates, bumper stickers, windshield decals, social media, and other forms. In other words, government does not need to invade your privacy. Most do it to themselves very publicly. Scammers feast on this. And then people are awestruck by what scammers know about them. Are we kidding? I have had the same randomly chosen number since my first license plate at age 16. That makes it easy to remember. I can think of better ways to display my personal vanity or political affiliations to the world than plastering my car with messaging
Elected school boards are a terrible idea. In Chicago, we already see the Uihlein-funded Illinois Policy Institute, Vallasites, and the rest taking their campaign against public education and unions into the election. They will be followed by home schoolers, Christian nationalists, book banners, etc., exploiting low-turnout uninformed elections to their own ends. Nothing to do with my opinion of the elected mayor and his actions.
As a suburbanite I don't understood how Chicagoans have tolerated appointed school boards for all these years. In effect, the mayor gets to unilaterally decide everything about CPS under this system. We see that playing out right now. In our school board elections we have prevented any take-over by "green-slate" (far right) candidates and are mostly very happy with our choices; choices that reflect the majority's values, not those of one person.
You are among the lucky and/or active electorates. Others have not been so lucky or informed. See, among many examples:
NBC, 2023: WOODLAND PARK, Colo. — "When a conservative slate of candidates won control of the school board here 18 months ago, they began making big changes to reshape the district. Woodland Park, a small mountain town that overlooks Pikes Peak, became the first — and, so far, only — district in the country to adopt the American Birthright social studies standard, created by a right-wing advocacy group that warns of the “steady whittling away of American liberty.” ... The board approved the community’s first charter school without public notice and gave the charter a third of the middle school building. As teachers, students and parents began protesting these decisions, the administration barred employees from discussing the district on social media. At least two staff members who objected to the board’s decisions were later forced out of their jobs, while another was fired for allegedly encouraging protests."
OK... But what makes you think those same voters were any more savvy in voting for their mayor? Uninformed or apathetic voters in one town don't negate my right to vote for the school board members I want in mine.
What I meant by my last sentence is that I would think that electing school boards is bad even if the current mayor were a cross between FDR and St Francis of Assissi.
In theory, what you say makes sense. So what's the answer? Appointed school boards gave us, for example, Richard J. Daley's appointed clown, Benjamin Willis. School boards, for years, have been part of the rubber stamp administrations for mayor's. It's been stated on many occasions by many different politicians that there is no such thing as a perfect form of government, because they are all run by imperfect people. My choice, among the imperfect choices, is democracy. I agree with you that elections do not necessarily provide good results. But if uneducated people make poor choices, they get what they deserve.
Willis was not a clown. He's hated for the temporary trailers used as classrooms. There was nothing wrong with them, the policy then, not just in Chicago, but in every large city was to have neighborhoods schools. No large city in the US bused students in the 1950s & 60s. I never saw a single yellow school bus in Chicago, unless it was from a suburban school district, bringing their students on a field trip to the city, usually the Lincoln Park Zoo. My own elementary school had over 35 students per classroom then, we got a small expansion of six classroom in the early 60s, but then they added a far larger expansion in the 90s. Four classrooms were actually in a nearby high school which had the room, until the first expansion was built .But much of that hate was also closet anti-Semitism, as Willis was Jewish & lived in the Edgewater Beach Apartments. They used to picket him there.
i don't understand how you can claim that there was nothing wrong with a policy that promoted de facto racial segregation, even in the early '60s.
please explain.
i agree with you, it was not just chicago/CPS that was promoting and enforcing racial segregation then - school districts across the whole country were battling the implications of Brown vs Board of Ed of Topeka. and i don't doubt that anti-semitism played a role in the protests. but that didn't make willis' decision right or proper.
Is it democratic when it is swayed by moneyed, clashing interests influencing low information voters (of which I would be one in this case) who vote solely on who is recommended by X or Y if they vote at all?
Hw about convening a neutral commission (such as those used for electoral boundary changes in enlightened states). There are plenty of goo-go (good government) types to staff such a body.
i don't buy your line of logic. and your comparison below to a small town in CO doesn't satisfactorily reinforce your argument.
CPS is not working - i.e., educating its students - for a huge majority of students, the vast percentage of whom are minority children from low income families. student population has fallen by almost 25% over the past 20 yrs. CPS' operating budget has more than doubled in that time, while inflation has increased only 54%. cost per pupil has almost tripled.
there are 19,000 children on chicago charter school waiting lists [13000-14000 unique students].
to promote and follow a path of doing more of the same, and paying more for it, doesn't make sense.
and why is it ok, even good. for those with income and/or assets [e.g., s davis gates, e zorn and me] to send our kids to schools of choice, when the low income parents of minority students have only very limited school choice?
i think the model chosen for chicago's elected school board is foolish, and dangerous - a prescription for chaos; and a takeover, or ongoing warfare, by special interest groups. it will be, as it has been for as long as i've known, all about the interests of adults, and not about the interests of schoolchildren.
Reading those two juxtaposed Chapman articles, I couldn’t help thinking he should have been a lawyer (or a politician). And just like Ronald Reagan embracing gun control when the focus was on armed Black Panthers patrolling polling places, Steve seemed in favor of the ‘genius’ Electoral College when it was helping George Bush only to take the completely opposite point after Mitt Romney’s resounding defeat.
I’ll be charitable and consider his change of heart a sign of growth and not just partisan hackery.
I'd be ashamed of myself if I hadn't changed my mind about lots of important matters over the course of my life. New information throws fresh light on past conclusions, ratifying some, revealing minor flaws or major errors in others. We don't live in a world of reason alone, as though it were some immaculate geometry class requiring solely a straight-edge and a compass. (An aside: props to Her Honor, Mary Lane Mikva, my desk-mate in Mr. Swajkowski's plane/solid geometry class at Kenwood H.S. If she's on your ballot, as on mine, vote for her!) A considered change of mind is vastly superior to dogged bullheadedness in the face of previously unknown or unknowable fact once it has been made manifest.
Absolutely—keeping an open mind is essential. I only wish that politicians would be more adept at explaining why they’ve changed their minds when the most obvious answer is “political expediency.”
That's a good point. Someone like Trump will just say things that he thinks people want to hear, flip flopping willy-nilly. It's up to the public opinion to judge whether a change in expressed opinion was due to genuine growth and improved perspective, or just bias or demagoguery.
Except Trump is less likely to care what the public thinks than how a billionaire willing to give him money feels about an issue. Take electric cars and bitcoin as examples, both of which he said were terrible ideas in the past -- until someone paid him enough to change his mind.
Trump is an exception to the rule. Disagreements about public policy are as old as the country. But the disagreements have usually been about the best way to run the country. Trump only cares what is best for him
That his followers don't grasp this and actually believe he cares for them is astounding.
Well said, and I should say that I've found Steve Chapman to be less partisan than some of his former colleagues. But the timing of his flip-flop on this did align with the political fortunes of his preferred party, whether intended or not.
And to give him credit, I assume he submitted this to EZ as an example of a bad take from his past.
I have never thought that Chapman was a Republican. What needs to be clarified is that no one needs to be considered a part of either side. It should not be assumed that everyone is one or the other. Thus the term "independent". I hate being chained to one set of viewpoints. What if I disagree with something on one side or agree with something on the other? Someone will probably remind me of all the comments I have made spilling bile toward Trump and Republicans. That has nothing to do with my being either a Democrat or liberal. I find most of what Trump says and does objectionable. This has led to too many Republicans doing and saying objectionable things because they fear him and his base.
Not now, but I recall him reminiscing about being a member of a collegiate Republican club, his first Presidential vote being for Nixon, and having an abiding admiration for Reagan. He might have even quietly supported Bush in ‘00, but by ‘04 he was emphatically renouncing him because of the Iraq war. I remember he wrote a column prior to the ‘04 election in which he made a point of how he’d never voted for a Democrat before, but was doing so that year as a protest against Bush.
This is really profound and perceptive! Times change. Minds should be willing to adjust to new circumstances. I try to make this point every time conservatives try to tell us what the Founding Fathers meant and intended. First, a good deal of time they get it wrong and misstate what they said. Second, they said it back in the 18th century. I think we can agree that a great deal has changed since then, things the colonials could not anticipate. To keep acting like the Founding Fathers were some kind of demigods that must be obeyed no matter what is rather ridiculous.
Originalism is just a brand name used to make it sound like they are concerned only with preserving the original intent of the nation's founders. Given the right opportunity they have shown time and again that what truly matters to them is their right-wing ideology.
What's really investing is the juxtaposition of positions they take. Eventually it becomes part of "God's plan." But supposedly none of us mere mortals know what God is thinking. So how do conservatives know this? Then I end up wondering why liberals were created? Do conservatives consider liberals temptation, something to fight off to please God, like the apples in the Garden of Eden? I don't claim to understand the minds of conservatives any more than the mind of God. I know this much. They certainly look and act hypocritical. And I have absolutely no idea who appointed them God's messengers.
"When it comes to constitutional interpretation, I consider myself an originalist. I want the world's most powerful country to be governed by nine people trying to guess what 40 syphilitic slave owners who lived 100 years before the germ theory and who didn't see women and non-whites as full people would think about modern political issues."
You would obviously know him better than I do. Based on the general political leanings of the Trib editorial board, it's easy to assume the right-leaning columnists are (were at this point) part of an overall agenda. But I do recognize the difference between Chapman and someone like John Kass to the point it's a disservice to even lump them together like that.
He is, but like any rigorous thinker, he’s not averse to changing his views. I remember he used to be rigidly anti-abortion, but he’s now rigidly pro-abortion rights.
I received a postcard from CTU last week pushing Ebony DeBerry, so I knew immediately who NOT to vote for!
If Johnson really wanted to balance the budget, he would cancel all those bizarre & unnecessary streetscaping projects in the city. They are a huge waste of the taxpayer's money, don't do anything positive & a payoff to favored construction companies that give big donations to politicians.
As for the fat traitor's bibles, I sent that article to my neighbor, who is a deeply religious evangelical, but not one of the loony ones & he replied:"This is an embarrassment--using people's so-called faith values to promote his agenda. Then on top of that, he follows business practices contrary to his words"
I vote no on every judge all the time. We have too many utterly unqualified ones, too many elected because of some weird propensity for ones with Irish names to get elected in the first place. Judges should not be elected, they should be appointed by the governor, but required to have a certain amount of trial experience to be even considered & then approved by a super majority of the State Senate. And the thresholds for retention is far too low, it should be a minimum of 75% Yes votes.
As to the weather page, they still have that appalling astrology page, which is based on a 2000+ year old fraud that the planets can have an affect on our lives. I know that the fools who actually believe in that crap scream mightily when it's canceled, but get some guts Kho & dump that idiocy!
As for putting "Strauss" om the sides of the helmets, not the brightest idea, remember, that Levis are made by "Levi Strauss" so there just might be some confusion there!
I just got a really large postcard from some group called "Chicago Working Families" attacking Bruce Leon, one of the two sane candidates in District 1, one hour after I did vote for Bruce Leon!
I vote no on all the judges, too. It doesn't accomplish the goal of getting rid of any of them, but it makes me feel bad ass for a few minutes.
The weather page used to be kind of fun with Tom Skilling, but it can go, along with astrology and those stupid Lockhorn comics. I gave a millennial friend my copy of the Sun-Times for a theater review, and he was shocked-shocked!-there was still a TV grid.
I think many people still shelling out money for the paper version of the Sun-Times appreciate the full page version of the weather, which includes details not easily found online or on local news broadcasts. Climate change affects us all, and many of us like staying informed.
That could be asked about any of the content in the newspaper. Of course if newspapers themselves disappear, a lot of that content would become harder to find.
Certainly some of the content is unnecessary. I'd argue that baseball box scores take up a lot of space that could go to actual sports news -- high school sports, etc. But you do put your finger on a real problem for newspapers, which is now they maintain relevance in this era.
Well, I have just spent a few minutes rummaging online and have not found as satisfactory a national weather map as the one that appears in the Trib and appeared in the SunTimes. I’m sure there’s one someplace but I don’t know where that is. Should the SunTimes provide a URL? To other now-missing content?
Dave Truitt's contributions of time and practical knowledge to organizations that make Chicagoans' lives better were not limited to those mentioned in his long obituary. One of the others, another of those with a song at its heart (thousands of songs, by now) was Chicago Children's Choir (renamed Uniting Voices a few years ago). When it faced dire financial straits in the mid-1970s, Dave was one of the half dozen people who formed a fundraising board and worked with the group's founder and home church to develop a new, and potentially more robust governing structure. It worked, as tens if not hundreds of thousands of Chicago kids could attest.
I voted for “Ban all vanity plates”. License plates are supposed to provide identification and documentation for vehicles that must be registered by a state. They should not be a forum for self absorbed jackasses to indulge their infantile predilections for trying to be cute.
If item number 3 on that list of reasons for the Secretary of State to reject plate requests were enforced, it would effectively ban all vanity plates.
I saw a Cubs license plate with FDASX on it. At first I thought they were opposed to the FDA (FDA sucks) until it dawned on me DA was one word and SX was Sox...
I am fine with the state making extra revenue on vanity plates. The alternative is raising the cost of all plates. I also rarely notice what is on a plate. There are also far more bumper stickers (often plastered all over the back of the car) for anyone that wants to make a point. So, the plate is a small addition.
IMO vanity plates work because they are easier to remember when you see a car speeding away from an accident. For some reason, the car either the Oct 7 in the plate holder that says Free Palestine doesn’t bother be much more than any other plate in that holder. And by itself it could be innocuous.
“(Johnson) invokes race at seemingly every opportunity…”
Boy, you can say that again. There is something almost Stalinistic about Johnson’s constant, race obsessed speech coding, especially when one considers the out of the blue, non-sequiterial way in which it is deployed. It really does seem like the only thing that he’s interested in is shouting out signals to his comrades to assure them that his spirit is one with the revolution. It actually really is quite funny, in a way, the same way that Trump’s increasingly phantasmagorical fever dream ravings can be very funny indeed (contrary to what Marj Halperin and other assorted scolds would have us believe).
This Sunday is the marathon. I live center city so roads are blocked, cell phone service will be intermittent and forget about food deliveries…And I Love It!
My spouse and I have sponsored dinners before and after for relatives and friends that run. We use to go out and cheer in person, now we cheer by the tv.
The elite runners male and female are amazing, their mile splits are superhuman. And we cheer for everyone to finish, we do not care about their political opinions, their age, ethnic background, religion, sexual preference…just human beings trying to accomplish a major feat.
One of the few events that brings folks together. My hat is off to all who finish…well done!
And notice when people finish, no dancing, no taunting…they congratulate one another embodying true sportsmanship.
This the kind of event we need, NOT the stupid and goofy NASCAR event.
The CTU has brought us here. Now it is time to break them and go all in with the nut cases so we don't lose some of the best high schools in the country. Unfortunately I think they have to be bankrupt before there will be real change.
but i do think CPS, and the city of Chicago, are on the road to bankruptcy. flailing incompetent leadership and greedy union leadership are running the shows. these leaders have learned nothing from detroit's experience.
The Oct 7 plate is more related to free speech than usual. OCT 7 alone could have also been a commemoration of the victims. But the owner in question has a license plate frame that says 'Free Palestine'. If the frame had said 'Never forget' or 'Never Again', the response would have been different. I am sure there are 9/11 and Dec 7 license plate references. In any case, the state should not be allowed to block a plate based on their concern about the frame. It is obviously unconstitutional to try to censor the words on a license plate frame.
CTU trying to set up their little power block - knowing Johnson is a one and done mayor. Wouldn't support their endorsements but rather support the 'anti-CTU' to get balance there. I'm not too surprised the interest level is low. It's an unknown political circle for most residents. License plates... not worth a battle. There are births, marriages, etc on 9/11 that are 'positives' vs 9/11 for most people - as you know from Jan 6. *My first misread of Harris-Walz as the "Harris Waltz" She has her own dance now? I early voted - can I get an App to block all politic ads on radio, tv and phone? That's some list of "Quotables" this issue. I'm in "old guys" group on player uniforms with ads. Strauss. I'm thinking NYY v SD. Network is worried about all NY series or DET vs SD. With Milton rampaging over FL - can we get an answer why weather people need to report directly from these disaster areas. We believe you a hurricane is coming - now get out of there.
Wow! Provocative topics today! But here is my main thought. During Hurricane Katrina, false Cristians- I refuse to call them evangelicals or preachers as they have little to do with God's work- said that Katrina was evidence that Hod was punishing New Orleans for its wicked ways. It leaves me wondering. Is God now punishing the realm of DiSantis, not once but twice, for its wickedness? Is this bastion of conservatism extra wicked? Or is it what it has always been- natural geographic and weather forces at work? How do the so-called preachers explain this one?
We had to evacuate New Orleans for Katrina. As we were driving across Lake Pontchatrain the goofy governor encouraged everyone to pray the hurricane down. Snarky atheist that I am I said , s@#t, I'm going to pray it up. I wouldn't have done that if I'd realized the kind of power I had.
Here's my comment on Johnson's responses to his unilateral decisions (about Shotspotter, the School Board, etc) and his disregard of legitimate questions by reporters, or objections by a majority of alders: I agree with the Tribune and the Sun-Times. I've watched extensive interviews with both Johnson and Martinez on Chicago Tonight, and have kept up with news about them. To the best of my knowledge and memory, Rahm Emanuel didn't cry "Anti-Semitism!" when he was criticized, (I also watched plenty of interviews with Emanuel) and I haven't heard a cry of "anti-Hispanic!" from Pedro Martinez. Mayors speak about all Chicagoans, but Johnson constantly refers to the black and brown communities only. Don't Asian, Jewish, white, Hindu and ALL Chicagoans of ANY nationality or religion count? At this point, Johnson has cried racism numerous times against the press and anyone who questions him, and he's constantly referring to his own kids attending a black neighborhood school, while Martinez also has kids in CPS, but rarely mentions this as a political attack point. In the beginning I felt that Johnson should be given the benefit of the doubt, even though CTU elected him and he barely eked out a win. But his terrible decisions (let's not forgot the firing of the wonderful Allison Arwady, with not even the grace to tell her in person or in advance) have culminated this past week in his autocratic, dismissive word salads and once again crying racism. It has all just disgusted me. Too bad he'll be Mayor for awhile yet.
It is often said of Trump that his guilt on any given transgression can be gauged by how loudly he accuses others of whatever he is being accused of. Johnson deals the race card on anyone that questions or criticizes him, a supreme irony considering his own avowed racism.
Re vanity plates: I have a vanity plate for the sole reason that there are a million or so cars that are the same make, model and color of mine, and it's often the only way I can find my car without a problem! Vanity has nothing to do with it.
I’m a 1A absolutist. A vanity plate celebrating the pogram Oct 7 is repulsive. If someone wants to have a poster or bumper sticker celebrating the murder and rape of civilian Jews that’s free speech - the state doesn’t necessarily need to sanction it. Kristallnacht was Nov 9-10 —same scenario.
A Oct 7 plate is no different than one displaying a swastika.
I complained to the Secretary of State's office years ago when I saw a plate that was "NTIFADA".
I have no idea if it was revoked.
Tom Owens is right. A person cannot coerce the state to endorse their message. A hateful person can always buy a bumper sticker.
This may sound naive, but has anyone considered that an "obviously" incendiary license plate could have been chosen before the 2023 Hamas attack, or for some other reason? For decades I've been grateful my daughter was born before her 10/7 due date, because it would have marked the tenth anniversary of a close friend's suicide.. During the previous century I very well might have bought a memorial 10/7 plate myself..
After thousands of years of history, is ANY date (or letter combination) guaranteed free of potential malicious interpretation? You focus on Kristallnacht's atrocities, Tom; I smile at my husband's birthday. We each see what we look for.
There are various viewpoints here in reply to this. I have a different viewpoint. Many people are always concerned about government overreach into their privacy. So how they respond? Their entire lives are posted on license plates, bumper stickers, windshield decals, social media, and other forms. In other words, government does not need to invade your privacy. Most do it to themselves very publicly. Scammers feast on this. And then people are awestruck by what scammers know about them. Are we kidding? I have had the same randomly chosen number since my first license plate at age 16. That makes it easy to remember. I can think of better ways to display my personal vanity or political affiliations to the world than plastering my car with messaging
Elected school boards are a terrible idea. In Chicago, we already see the Uihlein-funded Illinois Policy Institute, Vallasites, and the rest taking their campaign against public education and unions into the election. They will be followed by home schoolers, Christian nationalists, book banners, etc., exploiting low-turnout uninformed elections to their own ends. Nothing to do with my opinion of the elected mayor and his actions.
As a suburbanite I don't understood how Chicagoans have tolerated appointed school boards for all these years. In effect, the mayor gets to unilaterally decide everything about CPS under this system. We see that playing out right now. In our school board elections we have prevented any take-over by "green-slate" (far right) candidates and are mostly very happy with our choices; choices that reflect the majority's values, not those of one person.
You are among the lucky and/or active electorates. Others have not been so lucky or informed. See, among many examples:
NBC, 2023: WOODLAND PARK, Colo. — "When a conservative slate of candidates won control of the school board here 18 months ago, they began making big changes to reshape the district. Woodland Park, a small mountain town that overlooks Pikes Peak, became the first — and, so far, only — district in the country to adopt the American Birthright social studies standard, created by a right-wing advocacy group that warns of the “steady whittling away of American liberty.” ... The board approved the community’s first charter school without public notice and gave the charter a third of the middle school building. As teachers, students and parents began protesting these decisions, the administration barred employees from discussing the district on social media. At least two staff members who objected to the board’s decisions were later forced out of their jobs, while another was fired for allegedly encouraging protests."
OK... But what makes you think those same voters were any more savvy in voting for their mayor? Uninformed or apathetic voters in one town don't negate my right to vote for the school board members I want in mine.
What I meant by my last sentence is that I would think that electing school boards is bad even if the current mayor were a cross between FDR and St Francis of Assissi.
In theory, what you say makes sense. So what's the answer? Appointed school boards gave us, for example, Richard J. Daley's appointed clown, Benjamin Willis. School boards, for years, have been part of the rubber stamp administrations for mayor's. It's been stated on many occasions by many different politicians that there is no such thing as a perfect form of government, because they are all run by imperfect people. My choice, among the imperfect choices, is democracy. I agree with you that elections do not necessarily provide good results. But if uneducated people make poor choices, they get what they deserve.
Willis was not a clown. He's hated for the temporary trailers used as classrooms. There was nothing wrong with them, the policy then, not just in Chicago, but in every large city was to have neighborhoods schools. No large city in the US bused students in the 1950s & 60s. I never saw a single yellow school bus in Chicago, unless it was from a suburban school district, bringing their students on a field trip to the city, usually the Lincoln Park Zoo. My own elementary school had over 35 students per classroom then, we got a small expansion of six classroom in the early 60s, but then they added a far larger expansion in the 90s. Four classrooms were actually in a nearby high school which had the room, until the first expansion was built .But much of that hate was also closet anti-Semitism, as Willis was Jewish & lived in the Edgewater Beach Apartments. They used to picket him there.
i don't understand how you can claim that there was nothing wrong with a policy that promoted de facto racial segregation, even in the early '60s.
please explain.
i agree with you, it was not just chicago/CPS that was promoting and enforcing racial segregation then - school districts across the whole country were battling the implications of Brown vs Board of Ed of Topeka. and i don't doubt that anti-semitism played a role in the protests. but that didn't make willis' decision right or proper.
Neighborhood school did not promote segregation!
Because that's the way we always ran schools.
You're making that classic mistake of confusing correlation & causation.
Is it democratic when it is swayed by moneyed, clashing interests influencing low information voters (of which I would be one in this case) who vote solely on who is recommended by X or Y if they vote at all?
Hw about convening a neutral commission (such as those used for electoral boundary changes in enlightened states). There are plenty of goo-go (good government) types to staff such a body.
i don't buy your line of logic. and your comparison below to a small town in CO doesn't satisfactorily reinforce your argument.
CPS is not working - i.e., educating its students - for a huge majority of students, the vast percentage of whom are minority children from low income families. student population has fallen by almost 25% over the past 20 yrs. CPS' operating budget has more than doubled in that time, while inflation has increased only 54%. cost per pupil has almost tripled.
there are 19,000 children on chicago charter school waiting lists [13000-14000 unique students].
to promote and follow a path of doing more of the same, and paying more for it, doesn't make sense.
and why is it ok, even good. for those with income and/or assets [e.g., s davis gates, e zorn and me] to send our kids to schools of choice, when the low income parents of minority students have only very limited school choice?
i think the model chosen for chicago's elected school board is foolish, and dangerous - a prescription for chaos; and a takeover, or ongoing warfare, by special interest groups. it will be, as it has been for as long as i've known, all about the interests of adults, and not about the interests of schoolchildren.
Reading those two juxtaposed Chapman articles, I couldn’t help thinking he should have been a lawyer (or a politician). And just like Ronald Reagan embracing gun control when the focus was on armed Black Panthers patrolling polling places, Steve seemed in favor of the ‘genius’ Electoral College when it was helping George Bush only to take the completely opposite point after Mitt Romney’s resounding defeat.
I’ll be charitable and consider his change of heart a sign of growth and not just partisan hackery.
I'd be ashamed of myself if I hadn't changed my mind about lots of important matters over the course of my life. New information throws fresh light on past conclusions, ratifying some, revealing minor flaws or major errors in others. We don't live in a world of reason alone, as though it were some immaculate geometry class requiring solely a straight-edge and a compass. (An aside: props to Her Honor, Mary Lane Mikva, my desk-mate in Mr. Swajkowski's plane/solid geometry class at Kenwood H.S. If she's on your ballot, as on mine, vote for her!) A considered change of mind is vastly superior to dogged bullheadedness in the face of previously unknown or unknowable fact once it has been made manifest.
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” - Muhammad Ali
Or what conservatives used to say, “a 20 year old who votes Republican has no heart, a 40 year old who votes Democrat has no brain.”
Probably only applied when baby boomers were 40 :)
I believe that's a quote from Winston Churchill.
Absolutely—keeping an open mind is essential. I only wish that politicians would be more adept at explaining why they’ve changed their minds when the most obvious answer is “political expediency.”
That's a good point. Someone like Trump will just say things that he thinks people want to hear, flip flopping willy-nilly. It's up to the public opinion to judge whether a change in expressed opinion was due to genuine growth and improved perspective, or just bias or demagoguery.
Except Trump is less likely to care what the public thinks than how a billionaire willing to give him money feels about an issue. Take electric cars and bitcoin as examples, both of which he said were terrible ideas in the past -- until someone paid him enough to change his mind.
Yes, whether the public's judgement is correct or has any effect is a whole other separate ball of wax
It's hard to believe that TFG changes his mind. He just swaps in another script he's been handed.
Trump is an exception to the rule. Disagreements about public policy are as old as the country. But the disagreements have usually been about the best way to run the country. Trump only cares what is best for him
That his followers don't grasp this and actually believe he cares for them is astounding.
re trump & his lemmings, and quoting someone else, i'd say this phenomenon is 'shocking, but not surprising'
Well said, and I should say that I've found Steve Chapman to be less partisan than some of his former colleagues. But the timing of his flip-flop on this did align with the political fortunes of his preferred party, whether intended or not.
And to give him credit, I assume he submitted this to EZ as an example of a bad take from his past.
I would not at all say that Chapman's preferred party was Republican.
I have never thought that Chapman was a Republican. What needs to be clarified is that no one needs to be considered a part of either side. It should not be assumed that everyone is one or the other. Thus the term "independent". I hate being chained to one set of viewpoints. What if I disagree with something on one side or agree with something on the other? Someone will probably remind me of all the comments I have made spilling bile toward Trump and Republicans. That has nothing to do with my being either a Democrat or liberal. I find most of what Trump says and does objectionable. This has led to too many Republicans doing and saying objectionable things because they fear him and his base.
amen, all around
Not now, but I recall him reminiscing about being a member of a collegiate Republican club, his first Presidential vote being for Nixon, and having an abiding admiration for Reagan. He might have even quietly supported Bush in ‘00, but by ‘04 he was emphatically renouncing him because of the Iraq war. I remember he wrote a column prior to the ‘04 election in which he made a point of how he’d never voted for a Democrat before, but was doing so that year as a protest against Bush.
It's fair to say that in the last 20 years Chapman has seen the light. But as long as I have known and read him he has not been doctrinaire
i read chapman's columns for a long time, and i agree w- EZ - i highly doubt chapman would ID as a repbulican - even a pre-MAGA republican.
I have never once thought of Steve Chapman as a partisan hack -- though I certainly don't agree with everything he writes.
This is really profound and perceptive! Times change. Minds should be willing to adjust to new circumstances. I try to make this point every time conservatives try to tell us what the Founding Fathers meant and intended. First, a good deal of time they get it wrong and misstate what they said. Second, they said it back in the 18th century. I think we can agree that a great deal has changed since then, things the colonials could not anticipate. To keep acting like the Founding Fathers were some kind of demigods that must be obeyed no matter what is rather ridiculous.
Originalism is just a brand name used to make it sound like they are concerned only with preserving the original intent of the nation's founders. Given the right opportunity they have shown time and again that what truly matters to them is their right-wing ideology.
What's really investing is the juxtaposition of positions they take. Eventually it becomes part of "God's plan." But supposedly none of us mere mortals know what God is thinking. So how do conservatives know this? Then I end up wondering why liberals were created? Do conservatives consider liberals temptation, something to fight off to please God, like the apples in the Garden of Eden? I don't claim to understand the minds of conservatives any more than the mind of God. I know this much. They certainly look and act hypocritical. And I have absolutely no idea who appointed them God's messengers.
"When it comes to constitutional interpretation, I consider myself an originalist. I want the world's most powerful country to be governed by nine people trying to guess what 40 syphilitic slave owners who lived 100 years before the germ theory and who didn't see women and non-whites as full people would think about modern political issues."
paraphrase of a meme I saw somewhere
Chapman is the opposite of a partisan hack -- he's a rigorous and often fearless thinker.
You would obviously know him better than I do. Based on the general political leanings of the Trib editorial board, it's easy to assume the right-leaning columnists are (were at this point) part of an overall agenda. But I do recognize the difference between Chapman and someone like John Kass to the point it's a disservice to even lump them together like that.
He is, but like any rigorous thinker, he’s not averse to changing his views. I remember he used to be rigidly anti-abortion, but he’s now rigidly pro-abortion rights.
I received a postcard from CTU last week pushing Ebony DeBerry, so I knew immediately who NOT to vote for!
If Johnson really wanted to balance the budget, he would cancel all those bizarre & unnecessary streetscaping projects in the city. They are a huge waste of the taxpayer's money, don't do anything positive & a payoff to favored construction companies that give big donations to politicians.
As for the fat traitor's bibles, I sent that article to my neighbor, who is a deeply religious evangelical, but not one of the loony ones & he replied:"This is an embarrassment--using people's so-called faith values to promote his agenda. Then on top of that, he follows business practices contrary to his words"
I vote no on every judge all the time. We have too many utterly unqualified ones, too many elected because of some weird propensity for ones with Irish names to get elected in the first place. Judges should not be elected, they should be appointed by the governor, but required to have a certain amount of trial experience to be even considered & then approved by a super majority of the State Senate. And the thresholds for retention is far too low, it should be a minimum of 75% Yes votes.
As to the weather page, they still have that appalling astrology page, which is based on a 2000+ year old fraud that the planets can have an affect on our lives. I know that the fools who actually believe in that crap scream mightily when it's canceled, but get some guts Kho & dump that idiocy!
As for putting "Strauss" om the sides of the helmets, not the brightest idea, remember, that Levis are made by "Levi Strauss" so there just might be some confusion there!
I just got a really large postcard from some group called "Chicago Working Families" attacking Bruce Leon, one of the two sane candidates in District 1, one hour after I did vote for Bruce Leon!
I vote no on all the judges, too. It doesn't accomplish the goal of getting rid of any of them, but it makes me feel bad ass for a few minutes.
The weather page used to be kind of fun with Tom Skilling, but it can go, along with astrology and those stupid Lockhorn comics. I gave a millennial friend my copy of the Sun-Times for a theater review, and he was shocked-shocked!-there was still a TV grid.
I think many people still shelling out money for the paper version of the Sun-Times appreciate the full page version of the weather, which includes details not easily found online or on local news broadcasts. Climate change affects us all, and many of us like staying informed.
What detail are you thinking of that’s not easily found online?
That could be asked about any of the content in the newspaper. Of course if newspapers themselves disappear, a lot of that content would become harder to find.
Certainly some of the content is unnecessary. I'd argue that baseball box scores take up a lot of space that could go to actual sports news -- high school sports, etc. But you do put your finger on a real problem for newspapers, which is now they maintain relevance in this era.
Well, I have just spent a few minutes rummaging online and have not found as satisfactory a national weather map as the one that appears in the Trib and appeared in the SunTimes. I’m sure there’s one someplace but I don’t know where that is. Should the SunTimes provide a URL? To other now-missing content?
Imagine a future where the newspaper is just a series of QR codes that drive you to the content online...
The ST has a QR code you can use for extended, expanded weather.
Dave Truitt's contributions of time and practical knowledge to organizations that make Chicagoans' lives better were not limited to those mentioned in his long obituary. One of the others, another of those with a song at its heart (thousands of songs, by now) was Chicago Children's Choir (renamed Uniting Voices a few years ago). When it faced dire financial straits in the mid-1970s, Dave was one of the half dozen people who formed a fundraising board and worked with the group's founder and home church to develop a new, and potentially more robust governing structure. It worked, as tens if not hundreds of thousands of Chicago kids could attest.
“Meh”—all of this week’s quips. Didn’t vote for a single one. Alas, this is effectively the same as voting for all of them.
I had to stretch my standards beyond recognition to vote for 2 of them.
Surely there is a polling app out there someplace that would allow -1/0/+1 voting for this important weekly survey.
I voted for “Ban all vanity plates”. License plates are supposed to provide identification and documentation for vehicles that must be registered by a state. They should not be a forum for self absorbed jackasses to indulge their infantile predilections for trying to be cute.
If item number 3 on that list of reasons for the Secretary of State to reject plate requests were enforced, it would effectively ban all vanity plates.
I saw a Cubs license plate with FDASX on it. At first I thought they were opposed to the FDA (FDA sucks) until it dawned on me DA was one word and SX was Sox...
I am fine with the state making extra revenue on vanity plates. The alternative is raising the cost of all plates. I also rarely notice what is on a plate. There are also far more bumper stickers (often plastered all over the back of the car) for anyone that wants to make a point. So, the plate is a small addition.
i too am fine w- the state making extra revenue from vanity license plates.
however, if they were eliminated, but i'm not sure the [sole] alternative is raising the price of all other [regular] license plates.
another alternative: lowering the state's expense budget.
It is good to dream of better alternatives :)
IMO vanity plates work because they are easier to remember when you see a car speeding away from an accident. For some reason, the car either the Oct 7 in the plate holder that says Free Palestine doesn’t bother be much more than any other plate in that holder. And by itself it could be innocuous.
“(Johnson) invokes race at seemingly every opportunity…”
Boy, you can say that again. There is something almost Stalinistic about Johnson’s constant, race obsessed speech coding, especially when one considers the out of the blue, non-sequiterial way in which it is deployed. It really does seem like the only thing that he’s interested in is shouting out signals to his comrades to assure them that his spirit is one with the revolution. It actually really is quite funny, in a way, the same way that Trump’s increasingly phantasmagorical fever dream ravings can be very funny indeed (contrary to what Marj Halperin and other assorted scolds would have us believe).
This Sunday is the marathon. I live center city so roads are blocked, cell phone service will be intermittent and forget about food deliveries…And I Love It!
My spouse and I have sponsored dinners before and after for relatives and friends that run. We use to go out and cheer in person, now we cheer by the tv.
The elite runners male and female are amazing, their mile splits are superhuman. And we cheer for everyone to finish, we do not care about their political opinions, their age, ethnic background, religion, sexual preference…just human beings trying to accomplish a major feat.
One of the few events that brings folks together. My hat is off to all who finish…well done!
And notice when people finish, no dancing, no taunting…they congratulate one another embodying true sportsmanship.
This the kind of event we need, NOT the stupid and goofy NASCAR event.
The CTU has brought us here. Now it is time to break them and go all in with the nut cases so we don't lose some of the best high schools in the country. Unfortunately I think they have to be bankrupt before there will be real change.
i'm not sure i would phrase it quite like that.
but i do think CPS, and the city of Chicago, are on the road to bankruptcy. flailing incompetent leadership and greedy union leadership are running the shows. these leaders have learned nothing from detroit's experience.
The Oct 7 plate is more related to free speech than usual. OCT 7 alone could have also been a commemoration of the victims. But the owner in question has a license plate frame that says 'Free Palestine'. If the frame had said 'Never forget' or 'Never Again', the response would have been different. I am sure there are 9/11 and Dec 7 license plate references. In any case, the state should not be allowed to block a plate based on their concern about the frame. It is obviously unconstitutional to try to censor the words on a license plate frame.
CTU trying to set up their little power block - knowing Johnson is a one and done mayor. Wouldn't support their endorsements but rather support the 'anti-CTU' to get balance there. I'm not too surprised the interest level is low. It's an unknown political circle for most residents. License plates... not worth a battle. There are births, marriages, etc on 9/11 that are 'positives' vs 9/11 for most people - as you know from Jan 6. *My first misread of Harris-Walz as the "Harris Waltz" She has her own dance now? I early voted - can I get an App to block all politic ads on radio, tv and phone? That's some list of "Quotables" this issue. I'm in "old guys" group on player uniforms with ads. Strauss. I'm thinking NYY v SD. Network is worried about all NY series or DET vs SD. With Milton rampaging over FL - can we get an answer why weather people need to report directly from these disaster areas. We believe you a hurricane is coming - now get out of there.
I always see SD as South Dakota and then realize that it's San Diego. Ditto ND as North Dakota, not Notre Dame. Oh well.
Wow! Provocative topics today! But here is my main thought. During Hurricane Katrina, false Cristians- I refuse to call them evangelicals or preachers as they have little to do with God's work- said that Katrina was evidence that Hod was punishing New Orleans for its wicked ways. It leaves me wondering. Is God now punishing the realm of DiSantis, not once but twice, for its wickedness? Is this bastion of conservatism extra wicked? Or is it what it has always been- natural geographic and weather forces at work? How do the so-called preachers explain this one?
Unfortunately, nobody ever bothers to ask those preachers that question.
We had to evacuate New Orleans for Katrina. As we were driving across Lake Pontchatrain the goofy governor encouraged everyone to pray the hurricane down. Snarky atheist that I am I said , s@#t, I'm going to pray it up. I wouldn't have done that if I'd realized the kind of power I had.
I’ll go with DeSantis wickedness.
You forget for how many points.
Here's my comment on Johnson's responses to his unilateral decisions (about Shotspotter, the School Board, etc) and his disregard of legitimate questions by reporters, or objections by a majority of alders: I agree with the Tribune and the Sun-Times. I've watched extensive interviews with both Johnson and Martinez on Chicago Tonight, and have kept up with news about them. To the best of my knowledge and memory, Rahm Emanuel didn't cry "Anti-Semitism!" when he was criticized, (I also watched plenty of interviews with Emanuel) and I haven't heard a cry of "anti-Hispanic!" from Pedro Martinez. Mayors speak about all Chicagoans, but Johnson constantly refers to the black and brown communities only. Don't Asian, Jewish, white, Hindu and ALL Chicagoans of ANY nationality or religion count? At this point, Johnson has cried racism numerous times against the press and anyone who questions him, and he's constantly referring to his own kids attending a black neighborhood school, while Martinez also has kids in CPS, but rarely mentions this as a political attack point. In the beginning I felt that Johnson should be given the benefit of the doubt, even though CTU elected him and he barely eked out a win. But his terrible decisions (let's not forgot the firing of the wonderful Allison Arwady, with not even the grace to tell her in person or in advance) have culminated this past week in his autocratic, dismissive word salads and once again crying racism. It has all just disgusted me. Too bad he'll be Mayor for awhile yet.
It is often said of Trump that his guilt on any given transgression can be gauged by how loudly he accuses others of whatever he is being accused of. Johnson deals the race card on anyone that questions or criticizes him, a supreme irony considering his own avowed racism.
Re vanity plates: I have a vanity plate for the sole reason that there are a million or so cars that are the same make, model and color of mine, and it's often the only way I can find my car without a problem! Vanity has nothing to do with it.