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Paul Sullivan: No shortage of candidates for baseball’s biggest dope of 2021
CHICAGO — Baseball got through many a major doping scandal in the early part of the 21st century. Now it hopes to get through its latest self-made crisis: a proliferation of dopes in positions of power. One of the brainiacs already is gone — Seattle Mariners President/CEO Kevin Mather resigned in disgrace after bragging to a Breakfast Rotary Club about screwing players out of their service time, along with several other ignorant comments made on a stunning Zoom call. Another MENSA reject, Los Angeles Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway, was suspended during an investigation of alleged harass...
Chicago Tribune
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Commentary: Nuclear war was barely averted in 1983. Let that guide US-China relations now
Like many who have been locked down at home this past year, I’ve been passing the time by binge-watching TV, mainly foreign series. Among the best of these is the “Deutschland” series, about East German spies in the latter days of the Cold War, much of it based on real events. The first season, which takes place in 1983, at a time of heightened East-West tension, deals with the growing fears in Moscow and East Berlin that NATO might launch a surprise nuclear attack under the guise of one of its annual military exercises. We have long known about Soviet fears of war at the time, but newly decla...
Chicago Tribune
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Dahleen Glanton: It’s time to rethink Black History Month
In a few days, the month dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of African Americans will come to an end. This year, more than ever, we should think about the purpose Black History Month serves. Will African Americans be better off this year because February was designated in our honor? Will America, in general, be more knowledgeable about the contributions Black people are making to this country? And will we be any more unified as a nation than we were when the idea of promoting the achievements of African Americans was born in 1915, just 50 years after the end of slavery? The answer to...
Chicago Tribune
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Editorial: The kindness gap: Daniel Prude’s death should spur wholesale change in mental health care and policing
Read all of New York Attorney General Tish James’ report on Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man who died last March in Rochester police custody. A tragedy on top of tragedy, Prude’s death — and what preceded — was probably preventable, with plenty of blame to go around. The cause: systemic flaws in police and mental health systems, but no crime, which is why James’ grand jury came back without an indictment. The facts, as thoroughly presented by James, leave no other conclusion. Daniel Prude’s situation was a complex psychiatric emergency. A Chicagoan, Daniel was visiting his brother Joe on ...
New York Daily News
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Commentary: The hard work of being poor
As Congress advances a COVID-19 relief package that calls for a $15 national minimum wage by 2025, I am aware that some people think that being poor is a personal choice, or something that reflects personal failings. It isn’t and it doesn’t. I’m a coal miner’s daughter — no one has to teach me about hard work. My four siblings and I grew up in a West Virginia coal camp. Hard-working people were the foundation of our lives, even as the air we breathed was polluted with coal dust. The mines offered good work for a while, but they took a terrible toll. Our communities and water were contaminated....
Tribune News Service
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NBC pulls ‘Nurses’ episode over accusations of anti-Semitism
An episode of NBC’s Canadian import “Nurses” has quietly disappeared from its digital platforms after multiple national Jewish organizations called out its anti-Semitic tropes. The episode, which aired Feb. 9, included a scene in which a young Orthodox Jewish patient, Israel, finds out he’ll need a bone graft for his injured leg if he ever wants to play basketball again. “You want to put a dead leg inside of me?” Israel asks. “A dead goyim leg — from anyone,” his father responds, using the Hebrew word for a non-Jewish person. “An Arab, a woman.” Israel eventually refuses the surgery, saying Go...
New York Daily News
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Phil Rosenthal: When news of Tiger Woods’ crash broke, ESPN was slow to commit, new details were hard to come by and Bob Costas boosted CNN
CHICAGO — It should surprise no one which TV person was best at boiling down Tuesday’s news about Tiger Woods’ crash, recounting the epic sweep of Woods’ time on the public stage and putting the speculation into perspective. NBC alumnus Bob Costas was invaluable to CNN because he did what he always does and, as usual, did it better than anyone else. He lent perspective to Woods’ story, in and out of sports, and swatted away the speculation that was rampant everywhere. Costas even gently dismissed the elegiac tone of some of the coverage, correctly noting it wasn’t time for a requiem. Mike Tiri...
Chicago Tribune
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Editorial: Buckley would weep at the CPAC circus coming to Orlando
If the political descendants of William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan and Antonin Scalia were coming to town, that would be exciting. But that’s not what CPAC is bringing to Orlando, Florida, starting Thursday. We’re getting a new breed of 21st century conservatives, who, instead of focusing on economic policy and foreign affairs, obsess over fables of stolen elections and delusions of victimhood. The four-day Conservative Political Action Conference at the Hyatt Regency on International Drive features seven separate sessions — seven — devoted to elections. The titles include, “Protecting Elec...
Orlando Sentinel
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Editorial: Collapse with a capitol C: The failure of coordination before the Jan. 6 insurrection was even greater than previously known
Tuesday, hearings in the Capitol on last month’s storming of the Capitol revealed two depressing truths: The breakdown of communication that rendered law enforcement utterly unprepared for the siege was worse than previously known, and Donald Trump apologists engaged in instant revisionism continue to go to great lengths to minimize the severity of what occurred. As became known shortly after the Jan. 6 assault, an FBI report circulated on the eve of the attack. Based on an analysis of online activity, it said extremists were preparing to commit violence and wage “war.” Turns out, according to...
New York Daily News
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Brad Biggs: If Bears can’t re-sign kicker Cairo Santos, they’ll be adding another uncertainty to a team in need of solutions
CHICAGO — Twenty-four months ago, two questions were hanging over the Chicago Bears as they launched into the offseason. How would the defense transition after the departure of coordinator Vic Fangio to the Denver Broncos? And who would the Bears get to replace kicker Cody Parkey — whom they had signed the year before to a four-year, $15 million contract with $9 million guaranteed — as the next potential solution to the issue created when they cut Robbie Gould on the weekend before the 2016 season opener? Parkey’s double doink from 43 yards at the end of the wild-card round loss to the Philade...
Chicago Tribune
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