Is society really getting this petty?

Remember that incident just a couple of weeks after the 2016 Election Day, where a woman at a Michael’s crafts store in Chicago got all riled up over what she saw as poor service, and thought it was non-white workers trying to punish her because she was a political backer of Donald Trump?

Is the kid on the right a 'trouble-maker?'

Perhaps we should have seen that incident as evidence that the level of stupidity would continue to rise. Perhaps we shouldn’t be the least bit shocked at any of the nonsense we have endured recently.

HOW ELSE TO describe the incident in Cleveland suburbs last week where police were called on a 12-year-old boy who engaged in the kind of activity we’d like to fantasize many kids would do – pull out the lawn mower and engage in some grass-cutting activity to try to raise some money.

I know my own father insists on doing his own lawn cutting, but I know many people who’d rather pay $20 or so to have someone else sweat their buns off while mowing the lawn.

But in this case, the kid who was doing the grass-cutting was black, which seemed to offend the sensibilities of a neighbor of the woman who had offered to pay the kid some cash for his labor.

When the kid inadvertently let his mower wander over onto a part of her property, her reaction was simple.

CALL THE COPS!!!

I wonder if in her mind, a SWAT team would swarm onto the grounds and haul the little kid away for daring to be seen near her property – which probably is his real offense. She probably thinks the real culprit is her neighbor who didn’t have the sense to hire the “right” kind of kid to do such work for her.

Now to their credit, the police in Maple Heights, Ohio, had enough sense to realize at the scene that nothing of a criminal nature was taking place. The kids, according to the Washington Post, were a bit freaked out at having uniformed police officers arrive, but nothing more became of the moment.

The real 'crime' was naming Billy Thomas' character "Buckwheat"

Perhaps the day will come that they’ll be able to laugh it off.

MAYBE THERE ALSO will be a humorous ending for the incident earlier this year when a kid, who made the “mistake” of being black, tried selling bottled water in San Francisco near a stadium. She wanted money to help pay for a family trip to Disneyland.

In that incident, a white woman insisted on whipping out her cellphone to contact the police so she could report the great criminal offense of selling something in public without a permit.

The woman tried denying her account, but the San Francisco police on Saturday made public the recording of her 9-1-1 call to complain about, “someone who does not have a vendor permit who is selling water across from the ballpark.”

Which may have the San Francisco Giants upset that someone thought to buy water from a kid, rather than the overpriced carbonated beverages on sale within the stadium. Although just about every stadium I have ever seen will have someone similar peddling H20 to make a few bucks.

THERE HAVE BEEN other similar incidents of black people becoming the focus of complaining calls to authorities because of someone who is white feeling offended, or possibly threatened, by their very presence.

Calling out the National Guard?

It actually reminds me of people I have heard in the past who try to claim they aren’t racist because, when they were growing up, there were no black people for them to be offended by.

Is that their vision of a perfect world? One in which they think this Age of Trump somehow legitimizes?

What next? Someone will demand that a governor call out the National Guard because they think there’s a “criminal conspiracy” at the sight of several young black children trying to operate a lemonade stand?!?

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Waiting for the ‘el’ or a bus, the quintessential Chicago experience

We’ve all endured it, getting drenched by the rain or pelted by snowfall while standing at a street corner waiting for the damned bus that just doesn’t seem to ever want to arrive.

The concept of mass transit in Chicago is a wonderful way to get around the city. It makes it possible to avoid owning an automobile (and dealing with the expense) without being reduced to the life of a shut-in.

BUT WE ALL know how unreliable those Chicago Transit Authority buses and elevated trains are when it comes to showing up on time. The great uncertain is figuring out how much time to allot for the actual commute because you don’t know how long it will take to complete – particularly if a bus or train transfer is involved.

I know I have read those alleged schedules that claim buses on many lines run every 15 minutes, and that there are times of the day when ‘el’ trains are supposed to come along every seven minutes.

It’s supposed to be the endless system where one can just show up at the street corner or ‘el’ station whenever and catch the next train or bus. It is the reason many city residents claim they could never live in the Chicago suburbs, where the trains and buses run on set schedules once an hour (or sometimes even more infrequently).

Yet those suburban Pace buses and Metra trains at least have set schedules, and people know when the train or bus is late. City residents are expected to just cope with the delays, and hope they don’t work for the kind of boss who looks for reasons to rant against his employees.

WHICH IS WHY I found it amusing to learn of a new survey by a mass transit app called Moovit that says the amount of time people spend waiting for their bus or train is less in Chicago than it is in other cities.

Thirty-one minutes is supposedly the amount of time we spend each day waiting at the street corner or train platform, as reported by the Chicago Tribune.

By comparison, New Yorkers wait an average of 38 minutes a day, 39 minutes a day in Boston and 36 minutes in San Francisco.

Supposedly, Los Angeles residents wait an average of 41 minutes per day. Although my understanding of LA mass transit is that it isn’t as extensive as what other cities try to do, which means many people avoid it and turn to the freeways where they cause those daily traffic backups that can be just as frustrating as getting drenched by rain while waiting for a bus.

I’M SURE CHICAGOANS don’t feel comforted in the least by learning their average commute is less than other U.S. cities – particularly since we all have memories of incidents where we waited at least an hour for the bus to show up.

And whenever there’s a mechanical problem or a heavy weather-related storm, all bets are off in terms of getting to work on time – or even at all if things get particularly bad.

If anything, it is memories like this that make me remember fondly the summer some 30 years ago when I lived in an apartment on Damen Avenue just three doors south of the Brown Line ‘el’ station, which also was a bus stop.

Living in such proximity (I could see the ‘el’ platform out my bedroom window), I developed an inner sense of knowing when the trains and buses would arrive so I could avoid the waits – a sense I haven’t had at any other point in my life and one that I (along with many other Chicagoans) wish I could get back.

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Is bad pun racist? Or just stupid?

I have to confess – the latest journalistic outrage went right past me on Sunday – I didn’t even notice it.

By that, I’m referring to the Chicago Sun-Times, which in their (not-quite-so) thick Sunday editions used their front-page to make a big deal of the Asiana Flight 214 crash that killed some and injured dozens.

UNDER THE BOLD headline FRIGHT 214, we got a subhead offering what were then the current numbers of 2 dead and 181 injured, and a large photograph of the airplane wreckage – particularly the top of the plane ripped right off.

Nobody is complaining about a graphic display of a San Francisco airport crash in a Chicago newspaper – it was a big-enough story that newspapers, broadcasts, Internet sites and other forums everywhere all were making a big deal out of it.

But to the Asian American Journalists Association, the problem lies within that headline. They see it as some sort of mocking parody of the way someone of an Asian ethnic background might speak English.

They see it as a mocking of the people who were on board that jet – did they think they were on Fright 214 to San Flancisco? (And yes, that would be racist, if not for the fact that I wrote it only to mock those idiots who actually think people talk like that).

THE OUTRAGE IS intense enough that Jim Kirk of the Chicago Sun-Times got to issue his first apology as publisher – saying there was no intent to mock or offend anyone. “We were trying to convey the obviously frightening situation of that landing,” Kirk said, in a statement made public by the association.

I’m inclined to give the newspaper the benefit of the doubt solely because, like I conceded up front, I didn’t even notice it.

When I saw the newspaper front page on Sunday, I glanced at the headline and actually read it as “Flight 214.” I didn’t notice it as a pun. I quickly turned to the inside pages to get actual details.

It wasn’t until early on Monday when I noticed a couple of threads on Facebook that I learned there was anything resembling a controversy. It was only then that I went back to the newspaper, read the headline, and realized I had mis-read it.

IF IT REALLY was an attempt to mock someone’s accent, then yes, it would be offensive.

Yet I can’t help but think that this is more a matter some something stupid, rather than racist!

It’s a silly headline; and one that exposes the potential danger that lies within any attempt at puns – there are bound to be people who mis-read them. Of course, there always are those who mis-read something, regardless of how precisely it is worded.

Some people just don’t comprehend well under any circumstance. While others, like me, might race through it a little too quickly. I missed the attempt at a pun, and just took it for an unimaginative headline.

SO I’M NOT all that offended by the Sun-Times on Sunday. I’m more of the sentiment that the paper that day was unimaginative – and perhaps not worth the $1.75 ($3, if you live outside the Chicago-area) that was paid for a copy.

If there’s anything that offends me, it is the new layout structure that turns Page 3 (which ought to be a prime page for display of significant news) into a full-page advertisement.

I doubt the American Mattress ad brought in enough money to compensate for the fact that it now feels like all the news is buried back in the depths of the newspaper.

That is something every newspaper ought to be extremely concerned about. Because that’s exactly the kind of thing that makes potential readers think they’d be better off reading something else.

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Will The Times (N.Y., not London) make an impact on the Chicago news scene?

I’m curious to see the so-called Chicago zoned coverage that is being proposed by the New York Times as a way of strengthening that newspaper’s position as a national publication.

The Times last week began doing a San Francisco edition, of sorts. Basically, copies of the newspaper sold in the Bay Area will include a two-page spread twice a week that will be filled with stories of local interest.

TIMES OFFICIALS HAVE said that they also view Chicago as a market that could support such an effort, and that if the San Francisco “edition” does not turn out to be a complete flop financially, the Second City will be their second venture into the world of local journalism.

There are many ways to view this activity.

One is that it is ridiculous for the Times to think that “local” journalism is somehow going to be the publication’s economic savior, because it is something that it does not practice on its own home turf. People who want to know what is happening in the Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens need to read the Daily News on a regular basis. Even the New York Post gives a better account of the nitty-gritty of New York life.

The Times is the publication written and edited for New York residents who want a worldly view.

SO NOW, THE publication that doesn’t do the best coverage of its own back yard thinks it can come into our yard and snatch enough stories from the Sun-Times or Tribune that it would boost the circulation of their national edition in the Chicago area.

But now, having taken a cheap shot at the “grey lady,” I have to admit I try to read the Times on a regular basis. In part, it is because of their Chicago “coverage.” For the Times does maintain a bureau in our city, with a few reporters living here so they can cover the news throughout the Midwestern United States.

It is not unheard of to read stories in the Times about the political geeks, sorry athletes and other screw-ups who comprise the people that give Chicago its unique character.

Of course, when the Times comes in and covers something at City Hall or at the Statehouse in Springpatch, they usually come in after everybody else who is local has already tried to bleed the story dry of all its information.

OCCASIONALLY, THE TIMES can come up with an interesting factual tidbit that wasn’t known previously. But what they usually do is manage to do the one single write-up that puts an entire issue into perspective.

While the local press will be obsessed with advancing “the story” on a daily basis, the Times comes in when it is already advanced and tells “the world” what it all really means.

That can have its purpose (although, in all fairness, it was the competing Wall Street Journal that put the “Council Wars” of the mid-1980s into perspective when it came up with the defining phrase, “Beirut by the Lake.”)

But I would hope that the Times doesn’t think they can boost their circulation significantly in Chicago by merely giving us rewrites of what was already published in the local press. It won’t work.

NOW AS I understand, it won’t be the Times’ editorial staff that actually does the work of putting together a pair of pages on a pair of days each week.

They’re trying to work out partnerships in the Bay Area by which the actual “work” on those local pages will be done by public broadcasting news types, along with academic types from the University of California at Berkeley.

Does this mean we have the potential to get newspaper pages put together by WTTW, along with those earnest (but extremely inexperienced) students of Northwestern University? If they had to go that route, I'd just as soon see them pair up with Loyola University, which now has on its faculty one-time City News Bureau managing editor Paul Zimbrakos -- who I'm sure could browbeat reporter-types into coming up with "real" news.

I’d like to think that image of academia in daily journalism is just too ridiculous to be taken seriously. But I’m also realistic enough to know that the bottom-line of this project is to boost advertising revenue, not to necessarily improve the editorial quality of the newspaper as a whole.

WHAT’S THE POINT – in the minds of too many newspaper executives – of coming up with more ad revenue if you’re just going to spend it on payroll and expenses of producing stories? There’s a company as a whole whose stock value needs to be bolstered.

Yes, I’m a tad cynical about this whole project.

If improved Chicago coverage were all that significant to bolstering the quality of the newspaper, it likely is something that would have been done years ago.

This sounds, to me, like the thoughts of an advertising executive who sees that the potential sales to businesses in the New York metropolitan area have “maxed out,” so they’re trying to figure out how they can snatch a share of the advertising revenue elsewhere.

HEARING THAT THE Times is now in San Francisco creates in my mind the image of an easterner headed west to pan for gold, more than a century-and-a-half after the Gold Rush of 1849.

I guess we’ll find out if “there’s gold in our hills” if the Times then doubles back sometime in the near future and decides to descend on our streets.

So here’s a quickie local lesson for the potential New York newcomers – Madison is a street, not an avenue.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The Chicago Tribune took a more serious look at their potential (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-sun-phil-rosenthal-1018oct18,0,3236866.column) future competition led from New York.

Judge it for yourself. I’ll determine its relevance by the quality of stories it can unearth, while (http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/what-the-nyts-bay-area-report-looks-like-in-print/) some executives in New York will judge its success by the number of local advertisers it picks up.