Walter Jacobson's Perspective

I have some bad news to report this morning. The great New York Times – The uppity, uppity New York Times – is once again beating up on Chicago in its most popular Sunday edition. This last Sunday, The New York Times delivered to the world a special section entitled The Restaurant List. Twenty pages of what The New York Times declared are the 50 best restaurants in the United States, two of which are in Los Angeles and San Francisco, two each in Denver, Minneapolis, and Miami. Three best restaurants in Washington, DC. And, according to The New York Times, there are four best restaurants in New York. OK, OK, but, I’m wondering, how are the restaurants in Chicago stacking up? On The New York Times list, Chicago has one best restaurant, just one. Excuse me, please, but in the Oscars of the food world, Chicago chefs and restaurants have won more than 50 famous, highly-competitive James Beard Awards. Chicago is known around the world for its great chefs and restaurants. So, who’s testing restaurants for the New York Times list, and how is the testing being done? That 20-page special section in the Times answers neither one of those questions. So, I say it’s time for the New York Times to stop beating up on Chicago and to start shaping up its journalism.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

So, in Chicago, those now well-known ShotSpotters have run out of time. Their contract with the city has expired and Mayor Johnson says he will not renew it. But there’s a chance it may be back anyway because some members of the City Council are working on bringing it back. The ShotSpotter is a multi-million-dollar technology designed to help the police wage war against gun violence. It’s an alarm system that alerts police to trouble faster and more accurately than a call to 911. Mayor Johnson insists the ShotSpotter is not reliable enough to be worth millions. Those members of the City Council insist that residents of their wards insist the spotters are worth whatever they cost because they have demonstrated an ability to get police and ambulances to the spot of a shooting and are saving the lives of people hit by gunfire. It is fair to speculate that Mayor Johnson’s determination to remove the ShotSpotters is motivated by the politics – his politics – of his plan to run for reelection. To pay for ShotSpotters during an election year, on top of everything else, he’s paying for, candidate Johnson may have to raise our real estate taxes, which, for a candidate for public office, is a bad thing to have to do. So, the debate goes on. Should there be a ShotSpotter in Chicago? Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes or no? To fight gun violence and to save lives, my opinion, for sure, is yes.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

The news about who won the presidential debate in Philadelphia last week is getting old. So, let’s start considering something new. A debate in Chicago City Hall this week. It’s getting hot. It’s about Mayor Johnson’s Director of Internal Affairs, Kennedy Bartley, an outspoken young Black woman who’s been interviewed on national television about the death of a young Black man arrested by police in Colorado. Bartley said, in a foul-mouthed remark on TV, that “police are pigs.” Before Mayor Johnson hired Bartley as a top deputy in his administration, she was a top executive of a politically active group in Chicago helping him get elected. So, he now wants to protect her. Bartley’s declaration that police are pigs has been headlined in the Chicago Sun-Times as a headache for the mayor, followed by a headline that Bartley is accused of anti-Semitism. Both headlines are accurate and a problem for His Honor, an especially serious problem because neither he nor she is answering questions about that declaration that police are pigs. Several members of the Chicago City Council are demanding that Mayor Johnson fire director Bartley. So now there’s a very public debate about it and no end in sight. Moral of, or at least the message in, this story is an old and useful one that if you want to play politics in Chicago, especially in Chicago, you better be especially careful about what you think and when, where, and especially how you say it.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

For me, it was an OK debate. A lot of emotion and a little bit of anger. But nothing new from either one of the two. How they spoke and what they said is common this late in a campaign game. They were cautious candidates, very cautious to avoid trying a Hail Mary because if the hail fails, it’s grounds for a big, bad, debilitating headline about the candidate who tried it. Trump was Trump in primetime Tuesday night, trashing Harris, describing her as being not up to the job of President. Harris was Harris, trashing Trump, but reasoning she’s not as effective a trasher as Trump. So then, on to debating the economy and foreign affairs. Comfort zones for Harris. Scary zones for Trump. But nonetheless hopeful zones for millions of television viewers wanting but not getting enough reliable information to help us decide how to vote. What we were getting, in my opinion, was the ever-so-ordinary attempts to knock each other out of the game. She’s saying he tells lies and is unfair as a debater. He’s saying that’s what she does and who she is. Which leads me to say that’s what both of them did because that’s what most politicians in heated competition often do. Much of what Harris argued, Trump argued the opposite, which will go on now for about two months, leading to demands for and the possibility of a second debate. The media was the media Tuesday night cable TV, CNN and MSNBC declaring Harris the winner. Fox declaring Harris the loser. Come on, you candidates and you talking heads on TV. How about treating us to a second and even a third debate? Maybe one night or two. Just before we vote.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

The news in the news is moving so fast it’s difficult sometimes to keep up with it, and even more difficult to decide what to say about it. A good example of that is the story about a popular radio talk show in Chicago and the two on-air people who host it. The well-known hard-right political conservatives Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson, to whom, by the way, I am not related. Proft and Jacobson were on the air joking and laughing at and mocking the tears of Gus Walz watching his father, Tim Walz, accept the Democrat nomination for Vice President. Gus Walz is 17 years old. He is suffering from verbal and learning disorders. He got up from his seat in the United Center crying and saying over and over again, “That’s my dad! That’s my dad!” Seeing Gus on television, I could read his lips, “That’s my dad!” And I could tell how hard he was struggling to smile. Now the last chapter of my story is about Amy Jacobson being the coach of boys and girls team volleyball at Amundsen High School in Chicago on North Damen Ave. As a result of the fun she was having making fun of the disabled teenager, Gus Walz, she is no longer a coach at Amundsen High School, which, as I see it, is the right thing to have happened to Miss Jacobson and may happen to others having that kind of fun.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

Now that both political conventions have come and gone, how about thinking back to those magical days of the Olympics on TV, the amazing athletes, their skills and sportsmanship and friendships in picture-perfect Paris. Just what we needed to interrupt that terrible news about war in Ukraine and Gaza. The wildfires in California. Unbearable heat all across the South and Southwest. And, the nasty politicking most everywhere else. Among what the Olympics and conventions crowded out of the news was a story about two American astronauts stuck in a Boeing company spaceship launched two months ago but, due to a helium leak, now are stuck in the International Space Station, having waited more than 60 days to go home. NASA says the two astronauts will leave the station next February. That’s in 2025. “This is not an emergency,” NASA says. “There is nothing to worry about,” because a spaceship can be borrowed for the astronauts from the SpaceX company owned by Elon Musk. Elon Musk, the multibillionaire richest person in the world who also owns the Tesla car company which recently was ordered by the Federal Highway Safety Administration to recall more than a million Teslas troubled by an autopilot system described by the safety administration as dangerous. Which is causing me, and I suspect much of the world, to wonder if Elon Musk is trouble prone. Is Elon Musk looking for trouble? Should astronauts be afraid to fly in an Elon Musk spaceship? Would you be afraid to fly in an Elon Musk spaceship? Would I be afraid? Well, excuse me, Mr. Musk. If I were stuck in space, longing to go home, I’d be very afraid to fly in an Elon Musk spaceship. Very, very, very afraid.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

The night before the Democrats convened their presidential convention in Chicago, there was a civil rights Rainbow PUSH convention going on in honor of the Reverend Jesse Jackson of Chicago. An event not as spectacular as the Democrats. But for me, something extra special to think about because, in Chicago politics, Reverend Jackson and I grew up together. He, as a political leader. I, as a political reporter. Over the years, we’ve had a lot to do with each other. 36 years ago, in 1984, and then again in 1988, Reverend Jackson was a candidate running for president. I was a reporter running to keep up with him. He was a voice about Chicago government. I was an anchorman on Channel 2 News. Being typical politician versus reporter, we often were combatants. At one time, having no specific problem with me, Reverend Jackson was, for some reason, so unhappy with Channel 2 News that he organized and led a boycott against us that lost us many viewers. After which we both needed to calm down, which we did. And since then, when we run into each other, we still are calm and in a friendly way, we talk about Chicago government. I don’t know what Reverend Jackson thinks about me now. But I do know that I have for him deep respect and I thank and praise him for the personal sacrifices he’s made in doing the wondrous good he’s done. I now worry about his health and I wish for him what he so deserves: The best, the very, very best, years ahead.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

Just four days now until the Democrats begin their presidential nominating convention in Chicago. Many months after City Hall in Chicago has been agonizing over what may happen here next week, hoping it’s not what happened during the Democrat convention here in 1968, 56 years ago. Horrible things that still hurt to remember but are impossible to forget. I covered that convention. One reporter among more than 100 who were pushed and knocked around by violent protesters and bullied and tear gassed by equally violent Chicago police in Grant Park outside the Conrad Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue where more than 100 convention delegates were staying and inside the amphitheater, about two miles away, where the convention was underway. Now today, Illinois Governor Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Johnson and the Democrat politicians in City Hall don’t want to be embarrassed again by protesters and police. So, they are spending a fortune for security in and around the Loop and the United Center and are denying parade permits to protesters who are planning to parade wherever and however they choose. Which is causing protesters and police to be on alert for any kind of violent behavior. Which clearly is leading up to… Uh, oh! Oh, no!

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

Thanks, but no thanks, to Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and to the Olympic athletes in Paris who are causing me to watch a lot of television that is clarifying for me a trick of the television trade to make money. More and more money. We’re all watching that trick. You know, those never-ending television commercials pitching medicines. The makers of the medicines are paying huge amounts of money to network and cable television companies for just 15 or 30 seconds of air time to tell us over and over again about the wonders of the medicines now available at what they call bargain prices, promising us their medicines will heal our wounds, hide our freckles, protect us from our allergies, and take off and keep off the weight we so want off. The people on TV who are praising and promoting the medicines are, of course, young, beautiful, handsome, and happy. Or older, beautiful, handsome, wiser, and happy. All of them always appearing to be healthy. But for the end of those medicine commercials, there’s often a voice warning us about the “side effects” of the medicines that can cause infections and even heart disease. A warning I recently heard says, “If you’re allergic to a medicine, stop taking it and call your doctor.” While listening to that, I said to myself, “What? If allergic to a medicine, stop taking it? Duh!”

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective:

Oh, so wild are the politics of campaigning for president. If you’ve had enough of it by now, you might turn your attention to the US Supreme Court and some good news you may be missing. The court has declared it will not rule, or even consider, a request by the national gun lobby to overturn a gun control law passed by the Illinois General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Pritzker. It’s a good and tough law prohibiting the manufacture, advertising, and selling or buying a military style rifle anywhere in Illinois, like an AR-15 rifle, for example, that’s now a popular weapon for mass murder. The law was passed in response to the mass murder during the July 4th parade in Highland Park. Six people were killed, 30 people wounded. Since then, our gun control law has been condemned by gun lobbyists, including the sheriffs of several counties in Illinois announcing they will not enforce the law. Meanwhile, during the recent July 4th weekend in Chicago, eight people were shot dead, six wounded. In the weekend before that, in Chicago, 12 shot dead, 60 wounded, Nationwide, on July 4th, 238 shot dead, 618 wounded. Shocking. Yes. Sickening. Yes. Hard to believe. Yes. Hard even to imagine. No. Because we’re getting used to it. Too used to it.

Walter Jacobson gives his Perspective: