8-20-2026
This week:
Willie Wilson’s ghostwriter and the Chicago Teachers Union are taking their beefs public. I can’t help but wonder why.
News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
Trump says more people are working now than ever. The truth behind that claim.
Media notes — The upcoming website chicago.com is sounding more and more like an idea from yesterday
What is the “buck” in the expression “the buck stops here”? No, it’s not a dollar bill.
Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists
Good Sports — Why Angel Reese is such a good rebounder — and why she isn’t a go-to player in crunch time
Green Lights — The album “Congressman Davy: A Musical”
Correction — I misidentified someone in a photo last week
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Indeed, Pappas called Boykin a “fucking turncoat, a “piece of shit” and an “ungrateful asshole” in text messages over the weekend, which was, well, a bit much.
But what drew her ire was, in fairness, pretty fucking stupid. It was a memo “from the desk of Willie Wilson,” the perennial candidate who is running for mayor of Chicago for the third time.
I am calling on the Inspector Generals to investigate public officials who are running for multiple offices. The Illinois Election Code (10 ILCS 5/9-8-10) prohibits the use of public funds, property, or resources for political or campaign purposes.
Several officials — Illinois Comptroller Susanna Mendoza, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, U.S. Congressman Mike Quigley, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner George Cardenas, and Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas — are allegedly running for mayor of Chicago while holding current offices.
I urge investigations into whether these officials are using public resources for campaigning. Campaigning for mayor while holding another public office is unethical. Candidates should resign from one of their positions.
Integrity and trust in public leadership are essential. Taxpayer funds should never be used for campaign purposes.
The memo offers no evidence of misuse of public resources, and there’s no distinction in the law between the actions of an officeholder running for reelection and an officeholder running for a different office.
Pappas unloaded on Boykin and not Wilson because she knows — as readers of the Picayune Sentinel know — that Boykin is Wilson’s ghostwriter for all things, including for Wilson’s regular Chicago Tribune columns.
In bombarding Boykin with profanity, Pappas complained that she should not have been mentioned in this ludicrous attack because she is “not a declared candidate.” This is a bizarre complaint given that last November, she told Fox 32, “I’m in and I’m not getting out, I just haven’t announced."
Boykin, in turn, complained that, “boy how stupid am I to have bet on you” was racist.
Clearly, though, Pappas was using “boy” as an intensifier — as in “I just flew in from New York, and, boy, are my arms tired” or “boy it’s hot today” — and not addressing Boykin, formerly a political ally, in a belittling fashion.
What she sent out is the lowest of the low, and county taxpayers deserve to know what their elected officials are sending out and saying.
Boykin said one of the messages threatened him if he did not withdraw the letter.
“She says if you don’t withdraw the press release you sent out with Willie Wilson, I’m going to take you down. I’m going to take him down,” Boykin said.
He said he filed the complaint (with independent Cook County Inspector General Tirrell J. Paxton) after seeking a public apology.
“I ask one thing of this lady. A public apology. She didn’t do it. And so guess what, I have to protect myself,” Boykin said.
Boykin contends the messages constitute intimidation.
Pappas released a statement saying, “I stand by the salty language I used because that's how friends speak to one another when there's a disagreement.”
Not in my circles. But Donald Trump has removed the political bumpers on profanity, so this dust-up is unlikely to hurt her with voters.
Boykin going public with the spat seems likely only to draw attention to the fact that Wilson doesn’t write his own material.
In a 25-page complaint filed this week, the Chicago Teachers Union sued the Liberty Justice Center, the Illinois Policy Institute and IPI executive Austin Berg for defamation, alleging that the right-leaning think tanks have waged a “deliberate, coordinated and ongoing smear campaign designed to inflict maximum reputational harm” on the union.
The timing of the suit is curious. Most of the online posts that the CTU objects to are from 2025 or very early 2026, and some of them amplify the criticism of the union leveled in the IPI’s 2023 documentary, “Local 1: The Rise of America’s Most Powerful Teachers Union.”
Some of the beefs seem petty and thin-skinned. Over and over, the lawyers complain about the union being called “toxic,” as though name-calling at that level were not clearly protected political speech.
The point may not be to get in front of a judge and jury in civil court, but to draw battle lines in the upcoming city school board elections, framing the battle as one between conservative/libertarian people and institutions against the teachers. In fact, I don’t expect this case ever even to get to the deposition stage, when the CTU would have to open its books fully to counter its critics’ assertions that those books are “cooked.”
I’m not going to referee the CTU’s main claims. I’m friendly with Berg — he is a co-panelist with me on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. And though we disagree on education issues in particular, I consider him a person of integrity. Since he couldn’t comment to me on the pending suit, I’ll invite you to decide for yourself after reading the CTU’s complaint and these articles cited in the complaint:
How Stacy Davis Gates made the Chicago Teachers Union toxic (April 27, 2025)
Why CORE’s re-election to lead the Chicago Teachers Union is a hollow victory (May 18, 2025)
Chicago Teachers Union spent $173K on poolside recording studio, won’t show audit to members (Oct. 28, 2025)
Over 600 Chicago teachers hit Sin City on taxpayers’ dime (Dec. 31, 2025)
Exclusive: Chicago Teachers Union audits show potential criminal conduct (Jan. 19, 2026)
The Chicago Teachers Union is toxic among Democrats (Feb. 15, 2026)
Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-jokes poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.
View: Bullshit. It’s certainly a valid question — how do nonpartisan preelection poll results influence voter and donor behavior? — but it’s one that has been well studied without chicanery. Voters and donors are known to jump on bandwagons and stay home from the polls or decline to donate when they think their favored candidates are far in front or far behind. Bad polling numbers can keep candidates off multicandidate debate stages.
Banning preelection polling, as is done in many other countries, would violate our commitment to freedom of expression, but perhaps a major news organization or two could at least decide not to fund these distortions of democracy.
View: Dairy err. The former Illinois state senator, who made his fortune selling milk and ice cream in the Chicago area, finished third Tuesday, adding to his resume of defeats in attempts to win higher office. The feckless Oberweis, 80, came up short in bids for U.S. Senate in 2002, 2004 and 2014, for governor of Illinois in 2006 and for the U.S. House in 2008 (twice! in a special election and a general election) and in 2020. Unable to take a hint from Illinois voters, the so-called Milk Dud moved to Florida and threw his well-tossed hat into the ring again and self-funded his campaign to the tune of nearly $5 million.
The good news: Trump-endorsed candidate Catalina Lauf finished second. The bad news: The winner of the primary, media magnate Jim Schwartzel, is an outspoken Trump supporter himself, and the district is overwhelmingly Republican.
AP: “The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump’s tendency to avoid blame when things go awry.” Writer Will Weissert notes that “Trump’s tendency to point fingers at others is increasingly in the spotlight before November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are trying to retain control of Congress. His unwillingness to accept blame sometimes leads him to deny that there are problems at all, and could leave GOP leaders in tight races with little reassurance for voters that their concerns are being addressed.”
In “There’s No Reason to Buy a New Phone Anymore” (gift link), Atlantic writer Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly notes that “a recent poll of thousands of readers of 9to5Mac, a website popular among Apple fans, revealed that 38 percent of them intended to upgrade less frequently because of higher prices,” and the new devices simply aren’t so much better that upgrades are worth it.
Like many of you, I’ve read Belle Burden’s best-selling nonfiction book, “Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage.” It’s a first-person account of the dissolution of Burden’s marriage, made somewhat less harrowing by the lives of comfort and privilege led by the main characters, about which the narrator was evidently less than frank. New Yorker writer Jessica Winter unpacks it all in “What’s Missing from Belle Burden’s ‘Strangers’: One of the biggest books of the year weaves a tale of financial peril—but a review of court documents complicates the narrative.” The New York Times has an interview with Burden (gift link) that includes a response to the book from her ex-husband.
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.”
The Hill: Military experts say Trump’s obsession with steam catapults on military vessels is “illogical, inefficient and a waste of money,” because “redesigning the carriers to replumb them for steam piping to the catapults will take multiple years and cost billions of dollars.”
Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen Burke offers some stark statistics in her Tribune op-ed, “The electronic monitoring system is broken.” (Gift link) “As of Aug. 7, 79 people charged with murder or attempted murder and 154 people charged with sex crimes, including sex crimes against children, were on electronic monitoring. … Of the 3,000 defendants currently on electronic monitoring, the chief judge’s statistics indicate that more than 327 are currently missing, meaning no one has any idea where they are.”
Brad Heath at Reuters: “Trump put thousands of soldiers on Washington’s streets. They seldom stop crime.”
On this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast, Marj Halperin, Steve Bertrand and I joined host John Williams to discuss the news of the week. 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. Look for the YouTube version that will be posted later in the week. See our traffic-light recommendations below.
Roy Kent gives a fuck. A video compilation of the “Ted Lasso” pottymouth’s dropping of the f-bomb.
My nomination for the most memorable TV commercial of all time:
It’s early, yes, but I’m excited about Jon Ossoff as a presidential candidate for 2028 — Excerpts from Ossoff’s rousing U.S. Senate campaign speech last weekend.
Letter from readers about the rise of the socialist left in the Democratic Party.
A reader poll on whether the “sign of peace” ritual ought to be a regular thing at MLB games.
A particularly challenging, locally themed NewsWheel puzzle.
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:
■ Crain’s (gift link): “The next mayor will inherit Chicago’s budget problem. Here’s what candidates should do now.”
■ “Your price tag is watching you.” Tech columnist Kim Komando recaps the myriad ways people selling you stuff online use data signals to figure out what they’ll charge you.
■ Consumer Reports rates the best doorbell cameras that store recordings locally, keeping them private.
■ PolitiFact: “Most of your daily online activities rely on data centers.”
■ Georgia Sen. and potential presidential candidate Jon Ossoff has ticked off President Trump with a reference to presidential aide Natalie Harp. Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Ossoff mentioned diaper nurse Natalie, and every Republican completely lost their shit.”
■ The Atlantic (gift link): “Trump is putting his face on everything.”
■ Evan Hurst at Wonkette: Attorney General Blanche “indicts former SPLC woman for defrauding Nazis or something.”
■ Chicago-born journalist, author and documentary filmmaker Jonathan Alter: “It’s time to shelve the terms ‘Democratic Socialists’ and ‘Moderate Democrats’ for good,” in favor of “Common Sense Democrats” — and he says it’s common sense “to refuse to fill out any yes/no candidate questionnaires like the one from the ACLU that helped cost Kamala Harris the presidency” (2025 link).
■ Know Your Rights: The comic book. Columnist and comics veteran Mike Gold celebrates New York City Public Schools’ publication of what, for some immigrant kids, “might be the most important comic book they will ever possess.” The digital version, which Gold says “is completely useful throughout the United States of America,” is free to download here.
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
Donald Trump frequently crows that more people now have jobs than at any other point in our history.
But that’s because of population growth. The Employment-Population Ratio charted by Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), which measures the percentage of the 16-plus population currently working, shows that we are at 58.9%, which is below what it was for most of the Biden administration.
… to Chicago Magazine’s Tal Rosenberg, whose deep dive in Chicago Magazine to the city’s widely despised parking meter deal (gift link) is the best, clearest explanation of what happened, why it happened and how hard it will be for the city to extricate itself. Rosenberg quotes Justin Marlowe, director of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago : “Empirically, it’s difficult to find another public-private partnership or another privatization anywhere in the country, and perhaps even anywhere in the world, where the government entity appears to have left as much taxpayer money on the table as Chicago left.”
… to the team of Tribune reporters behind “Missed opportunities, incomplete investigations preceded discovery of 56 bodies at funeral home,” a deep dive into the history and politics behind the recent scandal.
… to David Jackson at Injustice Watch, whose investigation “Illinois’ special prosecutors have strong political ties and little oversight” covered four full pages in the Sunday Sun-Times.
You will frequently see me, Charlie Meyerson and other online writers post “gift links” to articles that allow nonsubscribers to avoid the paywall and read specific articles for free. The Tribune, for instance, allows subscribers to create 10 gift links a month, and each gift link expires after 30 days.
Last month, The New York Times quietly moved to an unlimited gift-link model, with links expiring in 30 days. The Atlantic, another publication to which I subscribe, has a similar policy, with free links expiring in 14 days.
Smart. Letting readers see the strength of these publications’ content seems likely to do more to build subscriptions than hiding that content behind a paywall.
As long as you don’t abuse the privilege, see Lifehacker’s article, “The Best Way to Get Past an Article’s Paywall.”
In “Can public media build its own social network?” Nieman Lab gives us more than 1,700 words on the partially baked plans for chicago.com, a Chicago Public Media initiative to roll out this fall. The article says it will be —
A network of online communities for Chicago neighborhoods (that will launch with) five neighborhood pilots this fall … (and) hopes to build a participatory community resource that informs everything from where to volunteer, to plans for the weekend, to how neighbors can meet one another. … “This is a community platform, not a news site — it’s very much not a news site,” Chicago Public Media CEO Melissa Bell said. … (Bell hopes to create) a social-media-style, participatory information hub (that) corrects a mismatch in available news mediums and people’s actual information habits.
Sounds a bit like NextDoor meets local Facebook groups meets the now defunct hyperlocal EveryBlock meets neighborhood newsletter. And no matter how Bell frames it, the line between information and news is far from bright.
The article says that “the goal is to keep chicago.com free to access and (supported) with a mix of memberships, sponsorships, and donations.”
To me, it sounds like an idea out of the 1990s when hopes were ridiculously high that there was a strong audience for local online bulletin boards. But I’m ready to be persuaded otherwise.
Barrett Media reports that “WBBM Newsradio reporter Bernie Tafoya will retire later this year after five decades in Chicago radio newsrooms.”
■ Media watcher Simon Owens: Historian Heather Cox Richardson — whose newsletter reaches almost 3 million people on Substack without a paywall or sponsorships — may be the most popular nonfiction writer alive.
■ “Making the entire journalism profession look bad.” That’s news watchdog Mark Jacobs’ take on a New York Times report that Forbes’ top editor has been fired after the revelation he took a secret $6 million payout from the founder of a research firm that works with Forbes.
(President Harry) Truman famously kept a “The Buck Stops Here” sign on his desk as president. That came from “pass the buck,” which, according to Truman’s presidential library, dates to frontier times, when poker players would pass a buckhorn handle knife to the person whose turn it was to deal the cards. If a player didn’t want to deal, they could pass the buck to the next player.
“The president, whoever he is, has to decide,” Truman said during his farewell address in 1953. “He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.”
I’d never pondered this expression but had always assumed that the “buck” was a dollar bill.
A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Neil Steinberg — My two boys look at social media with a mix of contempt and indifference — it’s something old people do to spritz the illusion of significance over their empty lives … a grotesque nest of senior citizens posting photos of lunch that nobody wants to see.
The Tweet of God — Given the population explosion of the last 100 years, it is absolutely accurate to say (Donald Trump) is hated by more people than anyone in human history.
Betty Bowers — Why would Iran want anything to happen to Donald Trump? His stupid incompetence has done more to burnish their reputation and harm America’s than *anything* they could ever do.
Donald Trump on June 14: The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Rex Huppke, USA Today — Who among us is not exhausted from hearing this 80-year-old man say the same false thing over and over again about a war that by September will have cost taxpayers more than $37 billion, all thanks to a Republican Congress that refuses to rein in the president.?
Republican U.S. Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina when asked during a debate, “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States?” — I’m just going to be honest here. I’m not all that informed on national security, but I do support the military. … National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise.
Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie — Donald Trump is about to become what he never, ever wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. He is being held hostage by Iran. They are holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage. As a result, they’re holding the world economy hostage. … And it was all voluntary.
New York Times gift link: “As Inflation Eats Up Pay Gains, Workers Fall Behind.”
Government data released this week showed that consumer prices rose 3.4 percent in July from a year earlier, outpacing a 3.2 percent increase in hourly earnings over the same period. That means that, for the fourth month in a row, Americans’ real wages — how many sandwiches, haircuts and gallons of gas they can buy with an hour’s pay — actually fell.
New York Times gift link: “More U.S. Parents Opting Children Out of Vaccine Requirements.”
At a time when measles and other potentially deadly diseases are spreading, more American children are receiving exemptions allowing them to attend school without the routine childhood shots that can protect against those illnesses.
Roughly 4 percent of kindergartners in the United States were given a nonmedical exemption for at least one vaccine during the 2025-26 school year, an 18 percent jump from the previous year, according to new data released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That rise, the largest annual increase recorded in more than a decade, comes as a growing number of states look to loosen vaccine mandates or even do away with them entirely.
A government watchdog report reveals the Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, spent $6.9 million on lobster tails during a single month in late 2025.
Beyond the $6.9 million for lobster, the Pentagon spent:
$15.1 million on ribeye steaks
$2 million on Alaskan king crab
Nearly $140,000 on doughnuts
Over $124,000 on ice cream machines
High-end non-food items were also on the list, including:
$98,329 Steinway & Sons grand piano for an Air Force residence
$225 million in furniture, featuring individual chairs costing nearly $1,900
$12,540 for fruit basket stands
$5.3 million on Apple devices
In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers then vote for their favorite. Here is the winner from this week’s contest:
The second-place finisher is one of my favorite tweets of all time.
Anyone can vote in the contest, but to have it delivered fresh to your email inbox each Tuesday morning along with the rest of the Picayune Plus, to participate in the comment forums and to ease your conscience, you can become a paid supporter:
Young Neil deGrasse Tyson: *slaps book out of his mother’s hand* “Clearly the hat is on the cat!” — @frovo.bsky.social
Sure, it was awkward when my phone went off in church and started playing “Highway to Hell,” but I wouldn’t say it ruined your mother’s funeral. — @johnlyon.bsky.social
Don’t forget to add “Just sayin’” to your clever little comment. — @yonewt
Not all heroes wear capes, and not all who wear capes are heroes. For example, Dracula is kind of an asshole. — @MelvinofYork
My 68-year-old mother is helping my 94-year-old grandma recover from an email hack. It’s like watching a monkey play cards with a horse. — @jzux
I still think daily about the time I was at Arby’s and the person in front of me asked what the “healthy option” was, and the cashier responded “leaving.” — @granttanaka.bsky.social
Maybe your baby is crying because he fears he’s already becoming you. — @DamonHunzeker
Good lets you sleep at night, but the real money is in evil. — @jakevig.bsky.social
Explaining to a child that we’re mortal and that death is inescapable is, probably, for me, the hardest part of being a party clown. — @jess_cavers
If I’m drunk enough to “do a little dance” I’m probably too drunk to “make a little love.” — @MelvinofYork
Vote here and check the current results in the poll.
Former Chicago Sky standout Angel Reese isn’t the tallest or the quickest player in the WNBA, nor does she have the best vertical leap, but she’s on pace to set both the single-season and career-rebounding records.
ESPN write Katie Barnes puzzles this out in “The secrets behind Angel Reese’s legendary rebounding.”
It’s almost as if she has magnets embedded in her palms. She especially loves to snag a rebound one-handed while holding her opponent back with her opposite forearm. … Reese’s wingspan measures 6-5, which only partially makes up for her underwhelming height. … Combine (her) strength with her willingness to create space (read: bump) in the lane (thanks, Julian), and Reese creates more opportunities for herself. … Call it motor. Call it drive. Call it desire. Whatever the word, Reese’s teammates, coaches -- just about everyone who watches her work -- point to an internal explanation for her rebounding prowess. “She just wants the ball,” says (current Atlanta Dream )teammate Rhyne Howard,
There is, of course, the “mebound” factor — the number of times Reese misses a shot and collects her own rebound:
Many of her second-chance points come off her own misses. Because, well, she misses quite a bit. According to GeniusIQ, her 46.0% shooting percentage inside the paint ranks last among the 27 players who have attempted at least 175 shots in the paint this season. … Her 49 “mebounds” this season are 25 more than the next-highest player.
Reese is a strong and energetic rebounder, no question. But if she were a truly great player, she’d be the go-to player with the game on the line. Clearly she’s not. In fact, she’s such a lousy shot that she’s obviously the last player on offense whom the Atlanta Dream want to have the ball in crunch time. Sunday, with the Dream tied with the Indiana Fever in regulation and just seconds remaining, Reese grabbed another rebound, then missed a point-blank layup that would have won the game.
The Dream went on to lose in overtime.
My Michigan Wolverines are 16th in the preseason college football polls, meaning the cognoscenti don’t see them even making the 12-team postseason. But last year’s eventual champion, Indiana, started the season at 20th in the rankings.
It happens! In 2010, eventual national champion Auburn started the season ranked 22nd. In 2000, eventual No. 1 Oklahoma started the season ranked 19th.
Admittedly, these are outliers. Since 2014, Indiana is the only champion to have started the season outside the top 10.
Prior to Wednesday’s games, National League teams, in total, were 974–926 (.513), while American League teams were 921–969 (.487). In the AL Central, the division where the Sox are in first place, the overall record for teams was 302–329 (.478) as of Wednesday morning, while the NL Central, where the Cubs are in second place despite having a better record than the Sox, the teams were 339–295 (.535).
Green Lights features recommendations from me and readers of songs, TV shows, streaming movies, books, podcasts, products and other diversions that, with only rare exceptions, can be enjoyed at home. Today’s green light comes from reader Tom Jackson, who hosts programs on Loyola University’s radio station, WLUW-FM:
The album “Congressman Davy: A Musical” tells the story of Davy Crockett’s almost-run for president against Andrew Jackson. The album is a good listen, and the music is a mixture of Americana styles, with vocals by some of Chicago’s finest. Jon Langford, Kelly Hogan, Robbie Fulks, Sally Timms, Nora O’Connor and more.
In his Substack post on the album, Jackson writes:
The truth behind “Congressman Davy” is more compelling than any fiction. The politics of the 1830’s bears some striking similarities to today’s world. …
Listen to my WLUW interview with co-creator & musician, Dean Schlabowske on SoundCloud at: Congressman Davy interview
I had never heard this story. Here’s an excerpt from a 2011 American History article:
Beginning in the 1820s, when he first stepped onto the national stage as a duly elected congressional curiosity, (Crockett) had the out-of-nowhere star power of a Sarah Palin. He fascinated the country because in some perceptible way he was the country: the rugged frontiersman, the unstoppable striver looking for success in business, for respect in politics, for ever-beckoning westward horizons. …
The nascent Whig Party … flirted with the idea of running Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee for president of the United States. Crockett was already a folk hero, a man who had carefully overseen the transformation of his backwoods biography — Creek War veteran, bear hunter, roving leatherstocking — into a new American myth of plain wisdom and restless self-reliance. He was a canny and resilient politician who had been elected, reelected, defeated and reelected again by the citizens of his west Tennessee district. He was also principled, steadfastly pressing the interests of his landless Tennessee constituents, clashing with Andrew Jackson over, among other issues, the president’s heartless Indian Removal Bill. But in the end he could not play the game at a level that was shrewd or cynical enough to keep the Jackson forces from running over him.
Other options for listening to “Congressman Davy” are here.
John Williams — A green light for “Falling Man,” a 2003 Esquire magazine article by Tom Junod about the image of a man plunging from the World Trade Center shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack.
Steve Bertrand — A green light for “Bait,” an Amazon Prime miniseries and the novel “Hope House,” by Joe Bond.
Marj Halperin — A green light for Nitro Nostalgia Ice Cream and Board Game Cafe at 4252 S. Cottage Grove Ave. in Chicago.
Eric Zorn — A yellow light for “Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage,” by Belle Burden (see Land of Linkin’ for more).
If you would like to offer a traffic light for the Rascals podcast, email a voice memo to johnwilliams@wgnradio.com.
When I become aware of errors in the Picayune Sentinel, I quickly correct them in the online version, but since many of you read just the email version, which I can’t correct after the fact, I will use this space periodically to alert you to meaningful mistakes I’ve made. (Not typos, in other words.)
In last Thursday’s item on body shaming, I misidentified someone as Darren Bailey. The corrected image is here and my point still stands.
Also, I referred to Tribune reporter Jake Sheridan as “Jake Sherman”; Sherman is also a well-regarded journalist. Both errors have been corrected online.
I am a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. I began publishing the Picayune Sentinel on Sept. 9, 2021, roughly two and a half months after I took a buyout from the newspaper. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise. Browse and search back issues here.
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