EXTRA: N.Y. ‘dropping dead’ becoming a headline writing cliché

News reports emanating from New York indicate that other recent reports had a bit of truth to them – as in Amazon.com being peeved with the Big Apple and people skeptical of the financial perks the city was willing to offer the company to get them to locate a corporate headquarters there.

The Internet can be at its best … 

Specifically, in the borough of Queens – which will have to revert back to being the location of J.F.K. Airport and the ballpark of the New York Mets. Along with the television settings for the “All in the Family” and “The King of Queens” programs that continue to live on in reruns.

… when it follows sprit of 'the press'

BUT IN KEEPING with the modern-day sentiment of corporations expecting to having their every whims catered to, Amazon.com let it be known they’re upset that New York isn’t doing more for them.

They let it be known that they’re giving up on plans for a new corporate headquarters in New York to supplement their existing facility in Seattle.

Which has officials elsewhere thinking that maybe they can get Amazon.com to bring some of their business to within their boundaries – including Chicago. Which actually led Crain’s Chicago Business to give us the hedline “Amazon to New York: Drop dead.”

Which isn’t even all that clever, as it’s a direct rip-off of the 1975 New York Daily News’ headline “Ford to city: Drop dead.”

IT WAS MEANT to play up a story of then-President Gerald Ford rejecting any kind of financial assistance to New York City, with the sentiment being that the president had literally cast off the nation’s largest city.

Was this an 'Olympics to Chicago: Drop dead' moment?

Somehow, the idea that New York has people willing to stand up to Amazon.com’s corporate desires sounds more like a plus to me. I suspect many of the activist-types concerned with corporate welfare (their other favorite cliché) will take great pride in the fact that the deal is now doomed.

Just like all those people locally who take a certain amount of pride in the fact they were able to derail former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s dreams of bringing the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago.

Ouch!!!

  -30-

Will we get a ‘do-over’ to try to bring that Amazon campus to Chicago?

There are many aspects of life where we wish we could have ‘do-overs,’ as in the ability to ignore some negative outcome and try to do it again in a more positive manner.

EMANUEL: Would do-over revive his legacy?

It would seem public policy is becoming one of those areas; what with the issue of Amazon.com citing a new corporate headquarters to supplement the existing campus in Seattle, Wash. All part of Amazon’s desire to make itself a company whose presence is all-dominant and powerful.

IT WAS A big deal last year when Amazon.com stirred up an application process that got municipalities all across the country eager to beg and plead with the Internet retailer of just about all kinds of goods to locate within their municipal boundaries.

Heck, even Gary, Ind., felt compelled to genuflect before the almighty-Amazon corporate image – hoping they could gain the facility.

It wasn’t surprising to many that when Amazon finally chose sites for their new proposed facility, they went with Washington, D.C. (the national capital) and New York (the largest city).

Specifically, they picked a New York proposal to locate within the borough of Queens. Only for it now to turn out that many of the locals are expressing objections to their city offering up much of anything in the way of incentives to attract Amazon.com to “the Big Apple.”

THAT IS WHERE the do-over comes into play. For Chicago officials on Friday made sure that Amazon.com officials were aware that the Second City is still willing to put forth the same offer (which would let the company pick from about five sites scattered around the city) that they did before.

Will Rahm succeed in resurrecting brawl w/ New York for Amazon.com?

In short, if New York doesn’t want ‘em, then Chicago is more than willing to take ‘em.

If New York can’t get local officials and activists to go along with the $2.8 billion in incentives that were offered up, Chicago is willing to resurrect its own plan for incentives.

With Mayor Rahm Emanuel indicating he’s more than willing to take the Chicago equivalents of those people who object to corporate tax breaks and other incentives being offered get with the program.

RAUNER: Will he get blame for initial loss?

AS IN HE’LL be prepared to use his political muscle to get those critics to “stifle themselves!” so that Chicago can draw a business entity that would definitely become one of the most prominent to call the Second City its home.

It’s not surprising to learn that Emanuel is willing to use his final couple of months in office to try to win over Amazon.com with a political do-over.

If he could actually manage to snatch this project away from New York City, it would be a significant move for his legacy. If anything, he could erase the failure he felt for being unable to get the project in the first place.

People ultimately will remember where Amazon.com chooses to locate. If Emanuel and other political people (including Gov. J.B. Pritzker and possible future Mayor Toni Preckwinkle) succeed, no one will remember that they initially failed.

IF ANYTHING, THEY may well try to shift blame to former Gov. Bruce Rauner – whose own support for the project was apathetic, at best, and in fact included some support for St. Louis. Indicating he seemed not to care where it actually wound up.

We’ll have to see just how important a New York City address is to Amazon.com officials. It may well turn out that it matters too much, and that Amazon officials are merely trying to sway New Yorkers into going along with the deal they originally agreed to.

So will a do-over for Amazon.com manage to succeed? It will be intriguing to watch the coming weeks to see whether Chicago’s level of clout is anywhere as strong and intense as our political people always fantasize it is.

Although I also suspect that when it comes to the average Chicagoan, there’s another issue where we’d rather have a do-over – as in that NFL playoff game the Chicago Bears managed to lose to Philadelphia. We’d love to have Cody Parkey try again at kicking that field goal, whose miss wound up bringing the Bears’ Super Bowl aspirations this year to a crashing end.

  -30-

EXTRA: It's Christmas? in Chicago

Just a few notes about a Saturday sojourn into the heart of Chicago to try to capture a bit of the Christmas holiday flavor -- as it still exists in the 21st Century.

At least this window had a Chicago theme. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

I couldn't help but feel saddened by one teenage girl whom I happened to overhear as she and her friends were checking out the holiday windows of the one-time Marshall Field's department stores.

AS SHE WALKED along State Street, disappointment was what she felt. "There's no story here," she exclaimed, in a loud-enough voice that I'm sure much of the crowd gathered along the one-time Great Street could hear.

Digital technology on display at Macy's, if little originality

For sure enough, some of the windows were decorated in individual scenes. But there was no continued theme connecting all the windows together. There was no holiday story being told. The overall theme couldn't help but come across as holiday lame for those of us old enough to remember the Marshall Field's holiday windows of old.

Bring back Field's!!!

Not that she was alone. I also couldn't help but notice the guy along State Street in front of Macy's with his picket signs demanding the return of Field's, whose memory continues to live on in the form of the old brass signs and the clock on the corner.

Those details are considered part of the building's historic character, and Macy's couldn't dump them no matter how much they'd want to.

I'M STILL TRYING to figure out what the best bit of street life I saw on Saturday was.

A literal street 'artist'

The group of "drummers" (actually playing overturned buckets) gathered along State Street? Or was it the guy near the one-time Carson, Pirie, Scott (now Target) who was literally creating street art -- as in he was drawing pictures for hire, while sitting on the street corner.

Rhythm? Or clamor?

One could watch him create his so-called masterpieces-to-order.

Vote for Willie!

I also couldn't escape politics. For one wreath-covered lamp-post also managed to slip in a little Election Day related message. Vote for Willie Wilson! As opposed to any of the 20 other political geeks who have dreams of filling the seat once held by Richard J. Daley. Will this be the biggest, most prominent, Wilson campaign display we'll see between now and Feb. 26? Or will this campaign season fit in perfectly with the Macy's generic version of Christmas?

The modern Macy's in Chicago

What's left of Field's

  -30-

‘Holiday shopping’ has arrived, yet the depressing part of retail yet to come

Many of us will indulge our desire to play “Santa Claus” in a few weeks, hoping we can find just the right present to give that special someone in our lives.

Holiday shoppers will see similar scenes along State Street. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

Even though the more-realistic happening will be a rush of items being returned to the store come Dec. 26 for exchange, as people wonder how much our relatives and friends don’t comprehend what we like.

WHY ELSE WOULD they buy that ugly sweater or stinky cologne (or perfume) for us? How could they possibly think we’d enjoy that!

It’s “Black” Friday, and I’ve lost count of all the advertising fliers I’ve received in recent weeks – informing me of all the special sales intended to get us off our turkey-stuffed behinds and out to their stores. Where we’re expected to spend our money in great abundance in anticipation of the Christmas holidays of just four weeks off.

But back to the Christmas event, which will motivate a lot of shopping – with retailers trying to make us think its our patriotic duty to turn out and endure the ridiculous crowds at stores anticipated for Friday.

This is, supposedly, the time of year when stores actually meet all the expenses of having operated this year – meaning that any income generated through sales from this point on will determine just HOW profitable 2018 turns out to be.

Will window decorations be replicated?

I KNOW THERE are a lot of people who took holiday-season jobs in retail, hoping to make some extra money. They’re counting on all those sales to help generate a slightly-larger paycheck than the minimum wage salary provides. They work on commission, after all.

In fact, I still remember a time when I did such a thing. It was the holiday season of 1987. I was a fresh college graduate who had a few writing gigs providing something of a freelance income. But a few extra bucks couldn’t hurt.

That was the holiday season I worked in the men’s department of a Carson, Pirie Scott store – one out in the suburbs that ceased to exist even before the whole chain came tumbling down earlier this year.

I wasn’t much of a salesman, usually because I didn’t have the heart to care if people actually bought anything. The same person who could easily get motivated to chase a political geek to demand answers just didn’t care what shirt style one preferred.

How many miss having city's holiday tree in Daley Plaza

BUT MY BIGGEST memories of that holiday season job were the final days when Christmas had passed.

I got to see just how much of the merchandise I had sold to people wound up being despised. I remember getting daily reports of exactly how much the goods that were returned were valued at.

For me, it used to be in negative figures. As in any sales I generated in the days following Christmas were negated by all the merchandise that got returned.

I even recall one woman who had asked my advice on buying a sweater for her brother made a point of coming back to the store to tell me personally how much he hated it! Merry Christmas to you to, lady!

The city's menorah will see its duty in coming weeks

CONSIDER IT PART of the reason why I don’t get enthused much anymore about this part of the holiday season, and why I consider it a part of my routine of maintaining my sanity to avoid any kind of shopping on this Friday.

I think the crowds will be ridiculous. The idea of sudden bargains financially will be greatly-overstated. If anything, I think I would not want to be amidst the chaos when trying to pick out presents for people.

Planning a trip? Airport decorations to see you off

If I actually like them, I’d want to try to get something they’d enjoy, which probably needs a more sane and rational process than people will endure on Friday.

Most definitely not something that’s going to make people feel compelled to go back to the store the final week of December so they can return the ugly charm bracelet or bottle of Aramis I would have picked out for them now.

  -30-

Chicago trying to figure how to attract as much retail opportunity as possible

Where does Chicago go shopping?

Leaving the South Side

There’s time when it appears we don’t have much of a clue. As much of it may well depend upon which demographic we happen to have been born into – and whether retailers are all that anxious to have our business.

A PAIR OF stories in the news of late would impact the ability of us to purchase the goods that enable us to get through our lives.

For some of us, that has now become something we do on the Internet from our homes, with items shipped to our homes (or what other address they happen to find most convenient).

While others of us still prefer the concept of a physical store to shop at. Which is why interest is being paid to municipal government trying to figure out how to get Target to back of off its intensions to close two of its stores in South Side neighborhoods.

Specifically in the Morgan Park and Chatham neighborhoods, both of which are majority African-American populations. Which has some people convinced that Target is dumping those locations because they’re not interested in selling goods to black people.

AFTER ALL, IT’S not a cutback by the retailer whose fanatics like to mockingly think of it as a French-like outlet. Because Target has plans to open new stores in the Rogers Park and Logan Square neighborhoods. Along with various other locations throughout the suburbs.

But none of those are majority non-Anglo like the locations of the two stores that are to be closed.

Target supporters try to argue that the retailer will still have South Side locations. Although you have to admit, the Hyde Park neighborhood is noted most for being so unlike the rest of the South Side in so many ways – including in its racial composition.

Putting Chicago off to the side

I won’t be surprised if Target decides to merely ride it out, and figure they don’t have to do anything to change their stance on store locations.

SO IT MIGHT be in vain the city’s efforts to offer millions of dollars in tax increment finance benefits – which allow the property taxes the company pays to be put into a special fund by which they could get it back to pay for future improvements.

It might not be enough to sway Target officials, who likely will tolerate the racial rhetoric of the next few months that claims the retailer is deliberately snubbing people based on race.

Even though I’m sure they’ll claim it’s mere demographics – even though I often wonder if such talk is merely a way of covering up a desire to be more selective about how they do business with.

Not that Target is the only retail issue that has city officials concerned. There also are concerns over the second corporate headquarters that Amazon.com wants to have beyond Seattle, Wash.

THE REPORTER RUMOR mill of recent weeks says that Amazon is about to choose a site – and it ain’t Chicago.

Supposedly, Amazon is interested in the Virginia-based suburbs of Washington, D.C., and the borough of Queens in New York. Which some will try to say means they want to be in D.C. and Noo Yawk. Although it’s really more like they want to be on the fringes of those two major cities where they can escape the grittier aspects of urban life.

Which might well include people of the same types of economic demographics that Target is trying to avoid by pulling their stores out of Morgan Park and Gresham.

The key to comprehending businesses and where they choose to locate is that they usually pick locations where their self-interest is fulfilled, with the underlying idea being that the day will eventually come when their self-interests are better served elsewhere. Meaning even if Amazon.com were to pick Chicago, it’s likely the day would come when they’d decide to move elsewhere.

  -30-

Sears seems like it faded away long ago

People woke up Monday to the news reports about Sears filing for bankruptcy. And not the kind that allows a company to skip out on its debts while restructuring itself so it can stay alive.

Sears was Amazon.com before Amazon.com existed

No, it seems like this may be the end for the historic retail giant that has been with us for 125 years, and for many of them was a dominant presence in terms of where we all shopped for goods.

EVEN IF YOU didn’t have a Sears store nearby, there was always the Sears catalog. Which in rural parts of the nation was a dominant presence. It really isn’t a stretch to say that Amazon.com was the same basic business model as Sears – except they use the Internet to make goods available, while Sears went to the expense of publishing hard-copies of catalogs advertising their goods.

But Sears most definitely is a part of the past!

One that I suspect most of us won’t mourn in the least. Unless you happen to think like my step-mother, whose reaction to hearing the news would be to wonder what kind of bargains would be available at the inevitable “Going Out of Business!” sale.

I don’t doubt there are some other people who will have the same reaction. Although I have to confess to being confused, since there have been so many cutbacks and reductions in recent years by Sears to try to buy more time for the company to survive that I don’t even know where there is a Sears store anywhere near where I’m living these days.

Sears stores of my youth … 

I KNOW WHERE all the Sears locations within Chicago proper were. As in “used to be.” We don’t have Sears any longer in the Second City that was the corporate headquarters to the one-time retail giant.

Even many of the suburban locations have long-since closed.

Personally, I might be inclined to want to take a trip to the Sears store where my family often shopped when I was a child, which was the Sears that was an anchor to the River Oaks shopping mall in suburban Calumet City.

Except that store closed some five years ago. I’ve heard countless schemes and proposals for how the city wishes to reuse the building, but none of them have managed to come about.

… are already long-gone from the retail scene

ON THOSE OCCASIONS when I happen to be in the area and drive by it, I see a huge vacant structure begging either for a new tenant or for someone to come along and tag it with graffiti. Of which I fear the latter is the option more likely to occur.

The Sears I remember of my childhood was a place where one could purchase just about anything. A “One-Stop Shop” for all of life’s needs.

But then, our society’s desires changed. Perhaps we think we outgrew Sears. Or perhaps some of us wanted the impression of purchasing higher-quality merchandise and were willing to pay a premium for it.

Although I suspect the majority of us were more interested in finding the financial bargains they could find shopping elsewhere. Just as those old neighborhood retail shops are gone because someone else could provide similar goods cheaper, Sears also got undone by the same basic premise.

The original Sears corporate complex

AFTER ALL, IT would cost a lot of money to keep a fully-staffed store with many departments – including many with specialty salespeople who actually understand their product.

From a business end, it’s cheaper to have the big-box model staffed with retail clerks who know nothing and provide next-to-no service or assistance. Something to keep in mind the next time you shop there and can’t get anybody to help you. You’re getting what you pay for.

The 'tower' no longer caries Sears brand name

Some of us will mourn the memory of Sears. We’ll stubbornly insist on using the Sears moniker to ID the building bought by the Willis Group. But then we ought to think of just when was the last time we bought anything from one of their stores?

In my case, I can’t even remember. I suspect I’m not alone. That’s why they’re soon-to-be no more.

  -30-

Chicago’s Treasure Island; most of the Second City never had a clue about you

We often hear odes to how sad it is to see businesses close – particularly if they’re not a part of some large corporate entity or if they in any way try to cater to their specific neighborhoods.

Hyde Park store among those to soon be defunct

Yet let’s be honest, most of us will talk about loving such businesses and their personal touch, but we don’t really care to do anything to support such entities. We’ll go to wherever we can save a buck or two – which is why those places that sell goods in large volume can do so well.

AND BUSINESSES LIKE Treasure Island can claim to be a significant part of history, while having to concede they have no place in the modern world.

Now I’m sure many of you may think you’re lifelong Chicagoans who know everything there is to know about your home city. But you’re probably wondering, “What’s Treasure Island?” Either that, or you’re thinking it’s some old movie that you’ve never bothered to actually watch because it’s in black-and-white, but you might go see it if they’d do a re-make with modern sensibilities starring a Kardashian or two.

Actually, it was a supermarket. A chain, sort of – even though its peak was to have five stores in very select neighborhoods of Chicago.

Which means most of us would have had to make a special trip in order to shop in one of their stores, and most likely we never bothered to.

THE BEST I can do to describe a Treasure Island is to say it was a store that would stock not-so-common staples that would be needed for people interested in cooking some more exotic dishes for their meals.

It most definitely wasn’t Jewel (and I’m not badmouthing Jewel, I live near one and wind up purchasing many grocery items there because of its convenience).

In fact, when Whole Foods began opening their stores throughout the Chicago area, I remember explaining the concept of them to people as being something similar to Treasure Island.

It was actually a book first

Only Whole Foods has gone on an expansion that has caused them to locate in the Englewood neighborhood. A place you’d never have found a Treasure Island store.

IN MY OWN case, I have been in the Hyde Park neighborhood store on a few occasions, and on occasion in their former location on Clark Street (which the last time I happened to walk by I discovered is now a Potash Brothers grocery store). Their other locations that I never managed to patronize were in the Old Town, Lake View and Lincoln Park neighborhoods.

As you can see, they’re pretty much a North Lakefront type entity – with the exception of that Hyde Park location that tries to cater to the segment of Chicago that is in the city because of the University of Chicago and wants to reassert the notion that they're NOT typical South Side Chicago!

Not exactly a place a Sout’ Sider would easily access – particularly since I’m sure he/she would have his/her own specialty shops to access on those occasions they want to purchase select foodstuffs.

Many of which, I suspect, would be of a specific ethnic persuasion.

WHILE RELYING ON the larger-scale stores for the daily supplies of keeping ourselves fed on a regular basis. And in this 21^st Century world, some of us are turning more and more to those businesses that allow us to go on-line to place our grocery orders – and have someone deliver our supplies right to our front doors.

You want to know why a Treasure Island will no longer exist following a couple of weeks from now, it’s mostly because I suspect that the kind of people who would have made the trip to one of these stores are now thinking it more convenient (if not downright trendy) to place a grocery order without having to actually go shopping.

Will we ever miss 'da Jewels' the way some will yearn for Treasure Island?

As for those specialty items that a Treasure Island might have stocked, I suppose I’ll be inclined to hunt down a Whole Foods store (there’s one not far from where I’m living these days) to make those purchases. Although I’ll be honest – I suspect I can get through life without many of those goods.

Treasure Island was evidence of the kind of people many of us would like to think Chicago is all about; when in reality, we’re more than willing to go do “Da Jewels” – with an occasional stop at a neighborhood Aldi’s to get an even better price.

  -30-

Illinois’ smoking age remains at 18

I almost find myself agreeing with Gov. Bruce Rauner, who recently used his veto power to kill off a bill that would have raised the age to 21 at which a person could legally buy a package of cigarettes or other tobacco products.

RAUNER: A VETO to smoking age hike

Currently, people have to be capable of showing they’re 18 or older in order to purchase cigarettes, or even those smokeless devices that supposedly allow one to experience the “joy” of smoking without exposure to tobacco.

RAUNER, IN ISSUING his veto of the measure, said that while he has no problem trying to discourage people from smoking, he doesn’t think this law will do a thing to achieve that goal.

In fact, Rauner is trying to view this as an Illinois economy issue – in that it would harm retailers who sell cigarettes by limiting the number of people they can legitimately sell their product to.

The governor actually thinks many people would just turn to surrounding states (if possible) to buy their cigarettes, since places like Indiana aren’t the least bit inclined to want to reduce their smoking ages.

In fact, the idea of people venturing across State Line Road to Indiana in order to make their cigarette purchases (at shops with generic names such as Smokes) is already a common practice. It would just have even younger people thinking in terms of doing their business elsewhere when it comes to cigarette purchases.

PERSONALLY, I’M AWARE that most people don’t even wait until turning 18 these days before picking up the nicotine habit. I recall my own school days when kids were usually around 12 or 13 when they first felt compelled to start smoking.

I can recall Junior High School days when those inclined to want to smoke knew exactly which local businesses (usually local gas stations, the grungier they were the better) would sell cigarettes to kids – and which were not.

Which means I don’t doubt there are some people more interested in their financial bottom line than in anybody’s health to continue their current practices – regardless of any stinkin’ law.

Are shops like this one in Hammond, Ind., the only real beneficiary of reducing the smoking age?

It may actually elevate the idea of selling cigarettes to minors (in some mini-minds) as somehow being a gesture toward personal freedom.

WHICH IS NONSENSE, of course. But it is one that is real.

It would take more than a change in the smoking age in order to actually stop teenagers so inclined to do so to actually not want to pick up a nicotine habit.

In my own case, cigarettes (and smoking, in general) was never a habit I ever sought to acquire. It was actually my father who (indirectly) made me not want to smoke because of the example he set.

No, he wasn’t any sort of tobacco teetotaler. My father was a cigarette smoker as a young man, and I can remember as a young child how much I hated the way he smelled as a result.

ACTUALLY, I WAS around many people who smoked in my family. But when I remember back, I think of the odor of my father as being the most repulsive.

My father has long-ago given up this habit, which I must admit makes being around him a bit more pleasant. But it’s such that I tend to think of being around people who smoke as being a tad too disgusting to endure.

So perhaps the key to discouraging cigarette smoking (and use of tobacco in general) is to make young people realize just how repulsive their action truly is.

Because actions such as what was pondered by the General Assembly this year (and vetoed by Rauner) is only going to make some people think of cigarettes as some sort of “achievement” in life they will gain the right to once they are “grown up.”

  -30-

How times change, and not just because more Sears, Kmart stores are closing

Earlier this year, the City Council placed a series of referenda on the ballot for the upcoming elections Nov. 6 – including one measure concerning the continued use of plastic straws within the city.

Soon to be obsolete

How ridiculous, many of us quipped. How absurd. Many of us figured it was purely a political move so as to knock more legitimate issues that politicos would prefer not to address off the ballot altogether.

BUT THERE ARE those people who look at all those straws one uses every time they attend a restaurant. Those plastic tubes allowing you to sip your drink, then throw them away.

Where they will wind up in a landfill somewhere, forevermore adding to the planet’s pollution (or at least several hundred years until they finally decompose into nothingness).

That issue popped into my head Thursday when I stumbled across a story concerning the Kroger Co., a supermarket chain that hasn’t been in Chicago proper for decades, but does have some subsidiaries that operate in the Chicago area.

One of which is the Mariano’s chain of up-scale supermarkets that they purchased not long ago. It seems they’re taking on the same environmentally concerned approach to doing business.

BEGINNING NEXT YEAR in Seattle, they’re going to do away with those plastic bags we all have received far too often when grocery shopping. Unless we’re the type who actively go out of our way to choose “paper” whenever asked the eternal question “paper or plastic.”

By 2025, the Kroger people say they want to do away with plastic bags altogether – as though they expect the world of grocery shoppers to start carrying around reusable tote bags every time they go to pick up foodstuffs. Which may make sense on a certain level, but I suspect a certain segment of society will always remain too lazy to think that far ahead when going out to shop for groceries.

Fun? Or hazardous?

In Chicago, we already have what was supposed to be the initiative to discourage plastic bag use – having retailers charge 7 cents per bag on top of the price of the merchandise.

I know some people are too cheap to pay it, but many others just wind up coughing up the cash for the convenience. Which results in lots of the plastic bags accumulating in our humble abodes.

AT LEAST IN my case, the bags do get re-used. My father and step-mother have a pair of dogs and there are times when I wind up with the task of walking them. Which means I carry pockets-full of the plastic bags so I can pick up the poop and not create a health hazard for the neighbors.

Of course, that means the bags wind up going into a trash bin filled with canine caca and will eventually wind up in a landfill that way – where the bags will outlast the poop inside them.

More in the way of change in our society. The day may well come when people won’t be capable of comprehending why we snickered at the thought of laws against straws – or bag bans!

Just like another story I stumbled onto – one involving the closing of yet another Sears store AND a Kmart by year’s end.

THE SEARS IN question is in downstate Bloomington; the city in which I attended college and where I remember often buying typewriter ribbons and occasionally having to take my Sears-model typewriter in for repairs.

While the Kmart is in suburban Steger – a municipality that typically would not have been considered significant-enough to have such a retailer. But the long-time mayor always considered it his major accomplishment of some 40 years in office that he made the trip to Troy, Mich., to persuade corporate types to locate in his village.

Yet another retail vacancy that will need to be filled by year's end

But nothing lasts forever, and soon they will just be memories – and something to be included on those lists to be published in a couple of decades of things that college-age kids of the future never actually experienced in life.

Perhaps also like the straws that some of us of now see merely as a political tactic, rather than a legitimate issue.

  -30-

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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Dick’s firearms restrictions sound nice, but will they really make a difference?

When I woke up Wednesday morning, I found a statement from Dick’s Sporting Goods in my e-mail box – the one telling me they’re going to stop sales of assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines at the stores the company controls.

One less place selling assault-style rifles

Pretty soon, that statement had been turned into a story that was showing up on news organizations across the nation – heck, it was the lede story for the Chicago Sun-Times’ website for part of the day.

SOMEWHERE, THERE’S A public relations executive who earned their money for the day – they got Dick’s corporate name into the public eye, and in a way that will be viewed sympathetically by the general public.

A good day, I suppose.

Except that I’m not the least bit convinced this move will make any dent whatsoever in the flow of firearms that exist amongst the public – and are what causes the threat of violence that exists these days in our society.

Because I’m not convinced that the kind of people who are obtaining firearms for violent purposes who really have no business thinking of themselves as gun owners are those who go to big, public shopping centers when they seek out their weapons.

I WRITE THAT knowing full well that Dick’s officials admitted that one of the weapons used in that Parkland, Fla., school shooting that left 17 dead last month was a shotgun that had been purchased from a Dick’s store.

That was truly the fluke.

Perhaps I’ve been influenced too much by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other activists who get worked up over gun violence. As a reporter-type person, I have seen them do many protests at gun shops that usually are in isolated locations. A place like Dick’s would be far too public for the kind of people actually having thoughts of large-scale violence for whatever foul reason they concoct in their minds.

And I’m not about to blame places like Chuck’s Gun Shop, located in suburban Riverdale just a few blocks across from the Chicago city limits. Although Jackson and the Rev. Michael Pfleger have often said they think Chuck’s sells many of the weapons that eventually wind up being used for nefarious purposes, even that store in a decaying suburb (one I lived in for a few years back when I was a young child) may be too out-in-the-open for conspiracy types.

WHAT ALWAYS ASTOUNDS me is the trail a weapon can take from the time it was legally sold to the point when someone decided to enrich themselves by selling it to someone whose intent is some sort of foul play.

It’s certainly not anything that would involve Dick’s.

Heck, Dick’s itself actually cut off sales of automatic rifles several years ago following another school shooting incident in Connecticut – one that involved children far younger than the teenagers who perished in Florida. What this act involves is cutting off sales of such weapons at the Field & Stream stores that also are a part of the corporate family.

Obviously, cutting off the sales at Dick’s proper several years ago didn’t prevent this incident from occurring. In fact, it makes me agree with a television-type pundit I heard recently who said that if the incident at the Sandy Hook Elementary School (where very young children were killed) didn’t motivate political people to act, then likely nothing would.

I DID FIND it interesting to see Dick’s says it will no longer sell firearms of any type to anyone under 21, which is a step in the right direction.

Particularly since it is an idea being contemplated by the Illinois General Assembly, where on Wednesday the Illinois House of Representatives approved an identical age limit, while taking up the enactment of several firearms-related restrictions that allegedly will make the public feel more secure.

Seeing a business voluntarily take on such a restriction is more likely to work than a state law that, I’m sure, ideologues will claim is another unfair regulation meant to hem in business.

But it still doesn’t change the fact that this move by Dick’s is but a tiny piece of the overall solution. Just as I’m sure our state Legislature’s actions are motivated in part by their desire that we quit focusing attention on other issues (sexual harassment, anyone?) they’d prefer we ignore.

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