No talkie talkie by me this morning about Chicago or Springfield or Washington government and politics. And no crabbing by me about some elected or appointed public official who’s now misbehaving him- or herself. I’m here this morning to talk about myself being 87-years-old and concerned, carefully concerned, because in the news business we’re always carefully concerned about everything. In my case, right now, it’s about thinking what might be an interesting and fair subject for me the next time I have time on the air. I can use a pause. I need to cool it. My 40-year-old children, Julia and her husband Sam, live in upstate New York, near Albany, where they own and operate a cannabis farm. They’ve just had their first baby, whom they’ve named Lola. I’ve not yet met Lola and want very much to be with her and Julia and Sam. And I’ve asked for and been granted by WGN some time off to go to New York. I need to cool it. So, you thousands of listeners to Bob Sirott on WGN every weekday morning 6:00 to 10:00, please excuse my absence for a while. Not to say goodbye, but to say see you later. And hey, Elon Musk, you cool it. Stop causing President Trump the trouble you’re causing his new administration.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

In my opinion, the easiest and most comfortable news to report is good news. And I’ve just come across some very good news that was in the news last week. You may have heard it. But even if you have, and for sure if you have not, I’m here this morning to report it again. It’s the news about a young woman being declared the winner of Chicago’s annual public school spelling bee and is now on her way to compete in the national and famously difficult Scripps Spelling Bee in Washington DC. She is Beatriz Whitford-Rodriguez, 13 years old, in the eighth grade at Skinner North Classical School in the West Town neighborhood near Lincoln Park. Along with several thousand students from 175 public schools in Chicago, Beatriz worked her way to spell the word sauerkraut, sau-er-kraut, which may not be the hardest word in the English language to spell, but it sure is hard enough to puzzle me. After reading the news about Beatriz winning the Chicago Public Schools Spelling Bee, I gave myself one chance to spell sauerkraut: sau-er-kraut. I love to eat sauerkraut, but to be honest in reporting this news, I must admit getting stuck. Oh my, did I get stuck on those two letters “a” and “u.” So I want to say to Beatriz, good luck in the Scripps Spelling Bee. And thank you for the good news to report about you winning the public school spelling bee in Chicago.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

There are big and important stories in the news today about that endlessly awful war being waged by Russia and Ukraine. And about disease and starvation around the world. And about $10.00 for a dozen eggs here at home. But I just can’t stop thinking about spring fever and baseball. Our Chicago White Sox and my Chicago Cubs who, in 1952, 75 years ago when I was a little boy talking my way into a job as a Cubs batboy. Wow! What’s big and important about baseball is that now for the first time in 50 years those Yankees in New York are being permitted by their owners to look, oh, kind of hippie on TV wearing mustaches, beards, and hair long enough to cover their collars. Looking quite hippie. In my opinion, the Yankee owners are doing the right thing, not because we need more hippies in the major leagues, but because we need to pay more attention to the damage Elon Musk is doing to our government and politics, getting himself in the news day after day about how rich and powerful he is in firing the thousands of government employees working in federal offices about which he knows nothing. It is time for Elon Musk to be tuned out.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

He is quite a character, that Elon Musk, believing it’s true what the media says, that he is the richest person in the world. And now Elon Musk is behaving like he thinks he’s President of the United States. And I believe it’s fair for me to say that because I’ve been listening to Mr. Musk on the radio and watching him on television ordering, yes ordering, as only the president or someone empowered by the president can order hundreds of thousands of government employees to make and keep a record day by day, every day, a record of what a government employee is doing so that Musk and Trump can know when work time is being wasted and they can play politics with it. While those popular Tesla cars that Mr. Musk is producing and selling are being described by people who buy and drive them as dangerous. Windshield wipers and seat belts not working. Engine noises too loud and distracting. Escalating speeds too sudden and scary. Musk is collecting those records and firing thousands of government employees to the tune of Musk speeches about saving taxpayer dollars, while so many thousands more who are not being fired are now quitting their Tesla jobs. And I, as a reporter, Mr. Musk, am waiting to hear on the radio and to watch on TV whatever it is that you and your pal in the Oval Office of the White House are planning to do next.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

The news about Walgreens closing stores in Chicago is bad news, and day by day it’s getting worse. The latest being that in the next few weeks, five Walgreens in Chicago neighborhoods will be closing their doors, locking them closed, and covering up their windows, while having no plans to unlock the doors or uncover the windows ever again, because, Walgreens says, business is bad and the stores are losing too much money. The worst of the news is that all five stores being closed are on the West and South Sides of Chicago, serving Black and brown minority residents, including senior residents, who soon will have to walk a mile or more to pick up their medical prescriptions. Seniors living in South Shore, Bronzeville, and Little Village who are sad and frightened about losing their Walgreens. What Walgreens is not saying is that it’s millions of dollars in yearly profits are enough, maybe even more than enough, to pay for deliveries, or at least keep their stores open a few hours a day to fill and deliver urgent prescriptions. What I say is: Hey, dear Walgreens, how about doing something really good? Those stores in minority neighborhoods, keep them open indefinitely. Or to be really, really good, keep them open permanently.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

If you’re not watching the Senate hearings about President Trump’s choices for his Cabinet, you’re not missing much that in my opinion is worth watching. Unless what you want to see are a few distinguished and undistinguished members of the Senate making long-winded speeches as if they’re still campaigning for or against Donald Trump moving into the White House. Hardly a word is being said in the hearings about who or what specific skills are necessary for a Cabinet member to be able to instruct, then advise the President on how to handle a sudden wildfire in California or a persistent problem in public education anywhere in the country. The Senate inquisitors are on showtime live TV, sounding off on important things they say they’re doing and how well they say they know who should or who should not be in President Trump’s Cabinet. What the Senators know best is politics, who President Trump’s political friends are and what’s motivating their speeches and votes during the same old, same old kind of hearings. Who among the Senators will the President bless with millions of his millions to help them campaign for reelection. All in all on Capitol Hill, the Senators and the President are playing the same old, same old money games.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

The public and often obscene arguments over President Trump’s decisions to fire FBI agents and prosecutors in the Department of Justice are being heard all around, everywhere, along with the expensive and damaging tariffs he says he’s planning against Mexico and Canada. And also his threatening speeches about our most committed allies around the world. While at the same time, blasting away about many other things, like, for example, his determination to have in his Presidential Cabinet Robert Kennedy Jr., a son of the once US Attorney General Robert Kennedy and a nephew of the once president John Kennedy. Much of what President Trump’s been saying is causing concern about what he may say or do next. What I’m hearing in City Hall and in Chicago neighborhoods all around, everywhere is talk, talk, talk that what’s possible next is another attempted assassination of Donald Trump by a political dissident or by who knows who and for what reason. For whatever reason, an attempted assassination is possible because it’s always possible. Which is why what we need right now is the noisy politicians in Congress and the White House, and the screaming headlines in the newspapers, and the talking heads on TV, to shut up.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

We can like or dislike our second time President Donald J. Trump. But we better, we all better, listen and pay attention to everything he says, because he’s changing the ways we are living our lives, most dramatically changing the way he’s dealing with our immigration crisis. President Trump is dispatching federal agents, mostly armed agents, who are now tracking down and arresting our neighborhood immigrants who have struggled their way to our sanctuary city and suburbs without passing through the difficult process of being officially and legally accepted as immigrants. It is scary news to read, and worse, watching it on television. A government blitz by nearly 1000 armed agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to track down and arrest immigrants. A tough guy police enforcer and extremist political commentator Tom Homan has been appointed by the president to assist the US Department of Justice in arresting immigrants. He’s describing himself as the American border czar, protecting America during an emergency. But he seems to me to be sounding and behaving like he’s an emergency.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

I am sure that I am not the only person having had enough, enough, enough already of that Zuckerberg guy. Mark Zuckerberg, the multibillionaire who owns and operates Instagram and Facebook. In case you’ve missed it, Mark Zuckerberg is changing the way he operates Facebook. He’s now permitting messages to be online before they’ve been checked for accuracy. In fact, Mr. Zuckerberg has shut down his office of responsibility for accuracy which means Facebook may be spreading misinformation, even deliberately spreading false information, spreading it for any reason onto millions of private and public computers around the world. It used to be that Facebook very carefully kept information before sending it. Zuckerberg’s declared purpose being to avoid spreading false or even accidental misinformation. Well, not anymore. Now, apparently, it’s OK for Facebook to send messages, including hate messages about certain races and religions. As a result, I am sad to say, hate messages are being sent online, which is upsetting many Facebook employees, even executives, causing reporters to be asking Mr. Zuckerberg to explain what he’s doing and why. His most frequent answer, or most frequent answers by his assistants are, that he’s unavailable for comment. Ugh!

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

Good morning, Mr. President Biden. I’m thinking you are ruining your reputation and your legacy with all those presidential pardons and commutations you’ve recently been granting convicted criminals. Like the pardon you granted your son Hunter and more than 1000 pardons and commutations you’ve recently granted in a hurry to beat the clock that in six days will end your power to grant anybody anything. Your latest grants are being read and spread worldwide, quite possibly destroying your legacy. Among your grants here in Illinois is the commutation you gifted Rita Crundwell, a former comptroller of Dixon, IL, accused of embezzling nearly $50 million. She was convicted, sent to prison, and now recently granted a Biden commutation. And Eric Bloom, former CEO of a company in suburban Northbrook, convicted of bilking investors of half a billion dollars. He was tried, convicted and imprisoned after what’s being described worldwide as the biggest financial fraud case ever tried in Chicago. And, like Rita Crundwell, Eric Bloom’s been granted a Biden commutation. So, what’s going on? My guess is that Joe Biden, good old Uncle Joe, is aiming to distract attention from granting that pardon to his son Hunter. As president he has the power to grant. His problem as President is he has no power to keep his grants a secret.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective: