How’s everyone’s weekend going? Thanks for spending a portion of it with the Six.
Earlier this week the Chicago Bears closed on a large piece of property in suburban Cook County Arlington Heights. Soon, they will begin construction on the site with designs on a new stadium and entertainment complex.
Arlington Heights is located about 30 miles northwest of Soldier Field. The Bears have played their home games at Solider Field, located in Chicago’s South Loop, since the early 1970’s. Presumably, once the AH site is complete, they will remain the Chicago Bears.
But this move is clearly an escape from the city and its vacuous political leadership.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, an entitled, arrogant identitarian about to be voted out of office, had this to say when news first broke about the Bears proposed move to the suburbs:
“They should focus on beating the Packers.”
Better players would help. But that’s a problem for Bears management.
A mature leader of a major city would not make such a dismissive comment. Lightfoot’s infantile, emotional remark set the tone for negotiations between franchise and city. In her final days as mayor (her poll numbers are terrible a week out of Feb. 28 Election Day) she grasps onto some Hail Mary dream the Bears will stay.
They’re gone. And it’s happened on her watch. Awesome legacy, Mayor Clown Show.
Let’s not forget Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (another identitarian bozo) in this episode.
When asked about the Bears move to the ‘burbs and public funding to assist the team, Pritzker said, “it’s a private business, and I honestly don’t think the public has an obligation to fund, in this major way, a private business.”
He’s correct in that taxpayer-funded NFL stadiums are bad business for cities.
But Pritzker, a billionaire who inherited his wealth built as a private business, has benefited from tax breaks all his life. This according to Forbes:
Partially released 2014 tax returns show Pritzker and his wife paid no state income tax despite reporting a taxable income of $2.9 million, according to the Chicago Tribune. As to why, a spokesperson for Pritzker said at the time that the then-gubernatorial candidate “made personal venture capital investments in Illinois companies, which qualified him for angel investment tax credits.” The incentive allows investors to claim up to 25% of $2 million in qualified Illinois ventures. From 2012 to 2014, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Pritzker’s businesses received $1.9 million in tax credits under the program.
That’s good accounting. Investors should take advantage of tax incentives.
But the ‘what’s good for me but not for thee’ sanctimonious hypocrisies of Pritzker, now a public sector politician, never ends. He resides in an alternative universe without facing accountability.
He regularly says dopey things. So does Lightfoot.
Here’s what these smug politicians are really saying to the Bears with their flippant comments:
We want to keep you, but on our terms. If you don’t like it, then take your disesteemed asses out.
That’s the attitude of the political ruling class in Illinois. Arrogance over compromise.
So say goodbye Chicago to the Bears.
Let’s proceed with the Six.
1. Student’s Training Kicked in During Mass Shooting at Michigan State.
Lost amidst the usual week of political culture wars was the latest mass shooting in America, this one at Michigan State University. Monday, a man showed up on the campus, located in East Lansing, and started shooting. Three students are dead, thousands more traumatized. I am a graduate of MSU and have several friends that live in Michigan and send their kids to MSU (they are all OK thankfully). I know the areas of campus that this lunatic shot up. I used to study there, to walk there. It’s hard not to think all of us will be impacted in some form by a mass shooting. The thought of ‘these events happen to other people’ no longer exists. There’s not enough room in this space to argue the why, about guns, prosecutors and mental illness. A very complex issue. So I thought I’d share a good piece from the AP about how the normalization of mass shootings has left students more prepared than ever when it happens in their backyards. It’s bad that this is where we are as a society but good that training for these tragedies means less lives loss and less trauma after it’s over.
The state of Florida is filled with retirement communities. Webster’s definition of “snowbird” is a “northerner who moves to a warmer southern state in the winter.” Fans of the nineties sitcom “Seinfeld” will remember the show famously parodied the retire-to-Florida movement with the “Del Boca Vista” episodes (“it’s a pen that writes upside down!”) Bailing from northern climates doesn’t mean a total escape from life’s little messes as this terrific read from The Intercept reveals. The author reports a you-must-read-it-to-believe-it tale of a grassroots revolt inside a retirement community called The Villages that ended with a 72-year-old political prisoner.
3. The Snake Cake Economy: How I Learned About Money in Prison.
There’s been few good books (“In the Belly of the Beast” by Jack Henry Abbott one book I’ve read that’s excellent) or movies/television on prison life (“Oz” on HBO worth a stream if you subscribe to HBO Max). This is an essay from a former convict named Neo Walker who did a minimum-security stint in Kentucky. Flexing unique prose, Walker explains how the federal prison economy works—it’s remarkably similar to the outside world, only with stamps serving as currency. And he reveals how the Fly, and his brother, became the Amazon.com of the joint. Wish this first-person essay were longer than it was.
4. NYC Asks Private Businesses to Do Their Dirty Work.
Almost two years ago, New York City legalized marijuana. But the predictably slow and indecisive process of actually green-lighting legal cannabis has meant that the city has become a cradle of experimentation in the form of hundreds of outlaw unauthorized weed shops. Because no enforcement mechanism was written into the legalization statutes, right now the DA is asking landlords very nicely to please kill the thriving businesses that opened up in their otherwise pandemic-doomed storefronts, and presumably hope that a Party USA or yoga studio will want to open up shop instead. City officials are sending letters to landlords urging them to begin evicting these unlicensed head shops. Not surprisingly, for the most part, the landlords are ignoring these requests. Is there anything more ironically humorous than elected public officials––many of these same officials that forcibly shut down these businesses during Covid Hysteria––now asking the same private businesses to do their dirty work? Get your shit together NYC. Blue state big government in its grandest state of delinquency.
5. “Schoolhouse Rock” Turns 50.
Origin story of the smart, fun and beloved 1970s-era “Schoolhouse Rock” series is well done by this Washington Post writer: “A parent, frustrated that his boys knew the lines to rock songs but couldn’t multiply, asked a co-worker at his advertising agency if he could help by setting multiplication tables to music. The agency happened to be a client of ABC, and when it came up with ‘Three Is a Magic Number,’ the timing couldn’t have been better to pitch the idea for TV.” Think about how much richer our lives have been with “Conjunction Function” and “I’m Just A Bill” teaching us lessons our parents or teachers could not.
6. Raquel Welch, Original Sex Symbol, Dies At 82.
Actor, icon, and international sex symbol Raquel Welch has died at the age of 82. No cause was given but her publicist said it followed a brief illness. What a career Welch had, playing scantily clad action heroes in films from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Later in life, she was a pretty prolific celebrity spokesperson and entrepreneur, selling beauty and fitness products. In her memoir, Welch was pretty pragmatic about the sex symbol label saying, “I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one. The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding.” Everything Zen. Welch did one appearance on “The Muppets,” a beautifully fit-for-the-70s weird song-and-dance routine of “Baby It’s Me.” RIP to a Hollywood O.G.
Thanks for reading everybody and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Have a suggestion for The Sunday Six? Send email to jonjkerr@gmail.com.