Twitter has been blocking or otherwise impeding links to Substack newsletters, so this page has become my workaround.

Picayune Sentinel for 8-24-23

• Last week’s winning tweet
• The baffling, unnecessary decision by the International Chess Federation to bar trans women from competing in women’s chess tournaments
• News and Views: It was smart of Donald Trump not to show up at Wednesday’s debate / It was smart of Mayor Brandon Johnson to push a compromise real estate transfer tax / It was curious that the White Sox floated a move out of Chicago / It was politically perilous for Indiana to pass a near-total abortion ban
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
• My search for quintessential Chicago experiences continues, and I need your help!
• Chris Christie has some choice words for Donald Trump, and I would like to share
• Mary Schmich — Lessons I learned in school
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• A good deal on a Tribune subscription
• Tune of the Week — “A Summer Wind, A Cotton Dress”

Picayune Sentinel for 8-17-23

• Realize this: Mayor Brandon Johnson stepped on a rake in the way he fired Dr. Allison Arwady
• Last week’s winning tweet
• News and Views
• The Chicago version of “Never have I ever”
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
• In which I express my flabbergast at a recent Tribune op-ed
• In which I praise the Tribune newsroom
• Your chance to vote “bah” or “rah” on Ronnie Woo Woo
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• A viral rant about Donald Trump
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — Stephen Foster’s “Old Dog Tray”

Picayune Sentinel for 8-10-23

• Are the sins of the father in Highland Park really a crime? I don’t think so
• Last week’s winning tweets
• Me oh my-o, a great election result in Ohio
• Ich bin ein Pat Quinner
• News and Views
• Remembering the Cha Cha Slide on “SNL”
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
• On the gratuitous grandparent watch — Wagging my finger yet again
• Mary Schmich — Bonne storage
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — Scads of reader nominees!

Picayune Sentinel for 8-3-23

• My reflections on getting together with my college housemates
• Last week’s winning tweet
• When Chicago journalists stood up to their editorial boards
• Michael J. Miles, Bach in saddle again
• The Chicago shortcut even Waze doesn’t seem to know about
• Whatever happened to that sports reporter on my high school newspaper?
• My old man has still got it — Jens Zorn is generating amazingly beautiful, significant sculptures at age 92
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — “Twilight is Stealing,” nominated by the Twilight Stealers
• Errata — The long-overdue introduction of a corrections feature

Picayune Sentinel for 7-27-23

• The IRS wants to help you file your taxes — The tax prep companies are opposed
• Last week’s winning tweet
• News and Views
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
• John Greenfield defends the idea of lower speed limits in Chicago
• What are you going to do with that money? Buy a nicer coffin?
• Mary Schmich — Quoting E.L. Doctorow
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — “Fourth of July” by Sufjan Stevens, nominated by Colleen Kujawa

Picayune Sentinel for 7-20-23

• Last week’s winning tweet
• Keeping an open mind about the coming end of cash bail in Illinois
• A veteran traditional dance caller (me) bids farewell to “gents” and “ladies”
• News and Views
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
• AI-yi-yi! — A grab bag of news on the artificial intelligence front
• Cheerios or Honey Nut Cheerios? — The voters have spoken
• Mary Schmich — What haven’t you done yet this summer that you really want to do?
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — “Fast Car”

 

Picayune Sentinel for 7-13-23

• If Fitzgerald has to go, so does most of his staff
• Last week’s winning tweets
• Follow-up on the launch of the Threads app
• News and Views — on Brandon Johnson’s blueprint for the future and more
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the News — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
• The great Cheerios face-off
• Word Court — is “guys” a gendered term?
• Mary Schmich — draws a bird
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — “Dream Operator” by the Talking Heads

Picayune Sentinel for 7-6-23

• The erotica of my childhood — bare-breasted women in history books. Oo la la!
• Results of the “Forever” stamp poll — Just a little more than 1 in 4 people know what it costs to mail a first-class letter these days.
• Tweet of the Week
• Tune of the Week — The amazing Roger Netherton’s sinuous version of “Whiskey Before Breakfast.”

Picayune Sentinel for 6-29-23

• Last week’s winning tweet
• Abolition of the death penalty depends on life without parole
• News & Views
• In which I advance the acronym “PING.”
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
• Neil Steinberg on his 10 years in the blogosphere
• Florida man gives middle finger to minor league baseball players
• The cereal prices are too damn high!
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — Nominated by local author Barbara Mahany
• Mary Schmich is off this week but will be back!

Picayune Sentinel for 6-22-23

• Last week’s winning tweets
• The Sun-Times grants a partial right to be forgotten
• Eyes on the dreadful Oakland A’s again after they drop their seventh straight game
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go.
• An update on the phenomenal podcast, “The 13th Step”
• Eyes on the right-wing pundits
• Mary Schmich — Write a letter to your father
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• An upcoming book I’m dying to read
• Tune of the Week — Nominated by noted podcaster Mike Pesca

Picayune Sentinel for 6-15-23

• Birthdays should not be just for the living
• Last week’s winning tweet
• News and Views
• Confessions of a celebrity golfer
• I choose to stink at golf, thank you very much
• The alleged Devious tactics of a travel insurance company
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Squaring up the news — A new feature from Chicago Public Square proprietor Charlie Meyerson
• Word court — On “enormity”
• Mary Schmich — A thought for summer travelers
• Race to the slop — Break up the A’s!
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Correction — I had it wrong last week about the cost of the Tribune’s “premium” issues. The Picayune Sentinel regrets the error
• Tune of the Week — A very powerful Father’s Day song

Picayune Sentinel for 6-8-23

• Nonsense! Mayor Johnson says, “If you don’t live in Chicago, you don’t have a right to talk about the city of Chicago.”
• Last week’s winning tweet — Another stolen joke!
• News and Views — On the F-word, a Catholic charter school, AM radio and more
• The fight between community journalism and AI goes on
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Mary Schmich — Thanks, George Winston
• A friendly reminder about “premium” issues
• Race to the Slop — Where we track the Oakland A’s as they stagger toward infamy.
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — The best wedding song ever. And I don’t mean “I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll.”

 Picayune Sentinel for 6-1-23

• The Nazis fired my grandfather Max, founder of the original Picayune Sentinel (among other accomplishments).
• Last week’s winning tweet
• One Oak Park newspaper contains almost no news about Oak Park — and the fears of a community publisher about AI
• News and Views
• Value signaling — I would never call this “virtue.”
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• What not to get the father who has everything— A wallet or a tie (or a butter churn)
• Race to the slop — An update on the possibility that the Oakland A’s will have a historically awful record this season.
• Stop reporting that someone wasn’t “immediately available for comment”
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — “Keweenaw Light”

  Picayune Sentinel for 5-25-23

• Relax! The big chickens are too scared of the big babies to put the nation into default
• Last week’s winning tweet
• News and Views — The National Enquirer turns on Donald Trump; The Triibe is killin’ it!; The “human composting” bill in Springfield is dead; Activists fighting for a different school-board districts map.
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Race to the slop — The 2023 Oakland A’s are on track to be the worst team in baseball’s modern era. And I’m there for it.
• Mary Schmich — On newspapers at kitschy deli wrap
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview — Monica Eng of Axios Chicago joined the small panel this week to talk about her series on property tax appeals.
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists.
• Word court — Your verdict, please, on “lie” and “lay” and “theater” vs. “theatre.” Plus an rumination on “accident” and a look at one of the strangest sentences you’ll ever see.
• Polling position: How readers rated the best months in Chicago an a question about banana splits.
• Tune of the Week — “Mighty Mighty” as nominated by my Songs of Good Cheer bandmate Jim Wynton

 Picayune Sentinel for 5-18-23

• Brandon Johnson makes trouble in alluding to Adam Toledo
• Last week’s winning tweets
• Promo for tonight’s event at the Hideout
• News and Views
• WFMT-FM’s “The Midnight Special” turns 70
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Word Watch — What do you call that last bit of food that everyone wants but no one wants to grab?
• Mary Schmich — On her mother’s yellow coat
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Ranking the months in Chicago — 1 through 12
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — “The Mary Ellen Carter” nominated by Peter Sagal

 Picayune Sentinel for 5-11-23

• Lightfoot’s defiant, unapologetic exit reminds us why she lost
• Last week’s winning tweet
• “Chicago Tonight” moves time slots again
• The Picayune Sentinel regrets the Tribune’s errors in an editorial calling for a balanced budget amendment
• News and Views on Donald Trump’s appalling locution, Tiger Woods’ breakup technique and bellyaching about “robo umps.”
• An interview with author Mark Guarino about Chicago’s country music and folk history
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Is ‘semi-permanent tattoo’ an oxymoron?
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll, this week’s finalists in the regular and dad-joke division, and the results of a poll on the funniest way to agree to sex in just five words.
• I am pleased and irritated to tell you how I cut $50 a month off my satellite TV bill
• Tune of the Week — “Waltzing on Top of the World”
• Picayune Plus for 5-9-23
• A dissenting view on Willie Wilson, columnist
• Some thoughts on the new Biden/Trump polling
• Visual tweets poll

Picayune Sentinel for 5-4-23

• Now? Now can we have political ethics reform?
• Last week’s winning tweet
• Tune of the Week — From Gordon Lightfoot, naturally
• News and Views — On striking Hollywood writers, Willie Wilson’s new column and more
• Yes, we need more critics. And local staff columnists, too
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• What should a journalist do if a subject will only offer answers in writing to questions?
• Mary Schmich — Thoughts on the demolition of a neighboring building
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists

Picayune Plus for 5-2-23

• Z-mail on insurance industry practices, Dylan Mulvaney, Kim Foxx’s failure to prosecute R. Kelly, school funding discrepancies and more
• The flimsy case against ‘human composting’
• Results of reader polls on the value of social media and the great waffles vs. pancakes debate.
• The visual tweets poll
• Picayune Sentinel for 4-27-23
• Kim Foxx’s legacy is still on the line
• Last week’s winning tweet
• Unlike a good neighbor, State Farm drops a longtime customer over storm damage
• News and Views— on Tucker Carlson, Brandon Johnson’s endorsement of Joe Biden, John Greenfield, Bob Fioretti and Dylan Mulvaney
• Word Watch — A farewell salute to a fellow language lover
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Homeless advocate on housing asylum seekers in Chicago — ‘What’s going on here?’
• Mary Schmich — A skyline photo of our wondrous city
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — Picking just one Harry Belafonte song as a valedictory was a challenge!

Picayune Plus for 4-25-23

• I would gladly pay $8 a month for Twitter—  but not under these circumstances
• Visual Tweet of the Week poll

Picayune Sentinel for 4-20-23

• Last week’s winning tweet — … and some close runners up
• News and Views — Don’t stand in the doorway, Sen. Feinstein. Don’t block up the hall
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Kass strikes back — Sort of
• Mary Schmich — Regrets her error
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Results of the reader poll on pennies and nickels — They make a lot of cents
• Tune of the Week — “Georgia Hard” nominated by Mark Guarino
• Picayune Plus for 4-18-23
• Johnson mulls ousting Arwady
• Zmail on John Kass; Adam Toledo and more

Picayune Sentinel for 4-13-23

• John Kass and “The Chicago Way ™“
• Last week’s winning tweet
• Another reason to support journalism
• News and Views — On the Democratic convention, the Adam Toledo case and more
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Dump the nickel as well as the penny!
• Play the retro version of Never-Have-I-Ever
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the last two visual tweets polls and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — A fiddle tune with a timely name and good story behind it

Picayune Plus for 4-11-23

• Is “butt-hurt” an anti-gay slur? 
• Z-mail on my “present” vote for mayor and more.
• Visual tweets of the week — a reader poll
• Picayune Sentinel for 4-6-23
• Mayoral election review
• I voted and yet I didn’t
• Two shining moments — The Tweet Madness winners
• The epic concession speech in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
• News and Views
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Mary Schmich — A brand new TrumPoem
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview — This week, Alice Yin from the Tribune joined the panel
• Re:Tweets — Featuring a plea to Elon Musk, a visual tweet that I won’t put in the poll and this week’s admirable crop of finalists
• Tune of the Week — Nancy Nall Derringer nominates a Shadow Show song

Picayune Sentinel for 4-6-23

• Mayoral election review
• I voted and yet I didn’t
• Two shining moments — The Tweet Madness winners
• The epic concession speech in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
• News and Views
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Mary Schmich — A brand new TrumPoem
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview — This week, Alice Yin from the Tribune joined the panel
• Re:Tweets — Featuring a plea to Elon Musk, a visual tweet that I won’t put in the poll and this week’s admirable crop of finalists
• Tune of the Week — Nancy Nall Derringer nominates a Shadow Show song

Picayune Sentinel for 3-30-23

• A few final thoughts and observations about the race for mayor
• News and Views — On the end of Twitter’s legacy “verified” program and more
• A new book claims cars have made life worse
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• The National Enquirer vs. “two-faced… blowhard … hypocrite” Tucker Carlson
• Mary Schmich — “Spring Light”
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — We are down to the Final Four in both the visual and conventional tweet categories. One shining moment is about to happen!
• Tune of the Week — am opening-day number nominated by former New York Times writer Bruce Weber

Picayune Sentinel for 3-23-23

• More Tweet Madness — The annual bracket competition moves on to the next round
• Vallas leads Johnson in the contest for unexpected endorsements — very few of Johnson’s backers are going against type
• News and Views — on the ComEd Four trial, proposed death penalty for women who obtain abortions, the baffling popularity of Ald. Jim Gardiner and more
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• A bill to ban the declawing of cats advances in Springfield
• On the death beat —Human composting may get a vote in the full state House and the busybody legislator who doesn’t want you to have all your loved one’s ashes
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview — including a soothing take from Mark Guarino on why the Lolla lineup should not make you feel old.
• Tune of the Week — My wife, who is having a persona disco renaissance, touts Dua Lipa

Picayune Sentinel for 3-16-23

• ‘I never said exactly that’ — Johnson and Vallas edge away from their former statements
• Brandon Johnson takes me to task
• Last week’s winning tweet
• Martire: Vallas is not blameless when it comes to the city’s pension woes
• Ja’Mal Green gives progressives permission to vote for Vallas
• Gannett is the worst
• Mary Schmich — A jolt of insight
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — The annual Tweet Madness tournament is underway
• Tune of the Week — The best mashup you’ve ever heard

Picayune Sentinel for 3-9-23

• The Walgreens boycott
• Last week’s winning tweet
• Don’t make me keep paying for Fox News, cable/satellite providers!
• Vallas’ dumb comments on race; Johnson’s slippery evasion on the head tax
• News and Views
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• Something to keep in mind when you are tempted to accuse others of racism
• Neil Steinberg stakes a claim to Sun-Times’ superiority
• I’m sick of “sic”
• Mary Schmich — Nine thoughts on the race for mayor
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• A reminder about next Tuesday’s mayoral forum on public safety
• Tune of the Week — as nominated by Laura Washington

Picayune Sentinel for 3-2-23

• Let the Democratic civil war begin
• Last week’s winning tweet
• Would a different voting method have changed the mayoral race?
• News and Views — On Scott Adams and the R. Kelly sentence
• A ‘couple’ of carjackings? C’mon, man!
• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
• The impressive bloodlines of Hinsdale Central star athlete Ben Oosterbaan
• The Paradox of Education — A provocative passage from a James Baldwin speech
• Mary Schmich — A civil rights legend you’ve probably never heard of
• “The Mincing Rascals” preview
• Re:Tweets — Featuring the winner of the visual tweets poll and this week’s finalists
• Tune of the Week — As nominated by WGN-AM 720 host John Williams