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NEW YORK — Blues guitar legend Buddy Guy has influenced some of the greatest rock guitarists of all time, including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Gary Clarke Jr. But the factors that led to his inspiration may not have happened if Guy hadn’t taken a stand — literally.

“When I came to Chicago, most blues musicians, including Muddy Waters, they all was sitting in a chair playing. And I said, ‘I can’t play like them, but I think I can outdo them. I can stand up and jump off the stage and get some attention,'” Guy recently told The Associated Press.

Jumping around on stage, playing the guitar behind his back, and picking with his teeth brought him lots of attention, especially from an experimental guitarist from Seattle who was recently discharged from the Army named Jimi Hendrix. The future virtuoso not only reinvented the sound of the electric guitar, but he also drew on the showmanship Guy displayed.

“I’m blessed with that because I didn’t know that many people would look at me and feel that way,” the multi-Grammy winning Guy said.

Now the 84-year-old blues great becomes the subject of the latest installment of the PBS biography series “American Masters.” The episode, now airing on PBS stations, “Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase the Blues Away,” dives into his lengthy career.

Honored and humble about being recognized, Guy says he saw his contemporaries as better guitarists, so he had to find his own style. That came from being inspired by different types of music, ranging from gospel to country — a mix he equates to a Louisiana culinary specialty.

“You can call my guitar playing gumbo, because if you cook a gumbo in Louisiana, you throw every kind of meat you can. And that makes it more delicious than what it was if you just put one meat in it,” he says.

Yet, all of the styles he put into his playing required extreme perseverance. Growing up in the Jim Crow era South and raised in a sharecropping family, Guy became fascinated the first time he saw someone play guitar. But actually having one to put in his hands and play created an obstacle he needed to overcome.

He would try and make his own, including using rubber bands as strings, before increasing his ingenuity to the wire strands from the window screens in the family home. But the ever-dwindling screens came to the attention of his mother. “My mom noticed mosquitoes in the house because something was wrong with the windows.”

He recalls getting his hands on a real guitar during a Christmas celebration when its player took a break to get drunk, providing Guy with some time to figure out how to play what he had seen. His dad eventually bought him a guitar for “a couple of dollars” and he never looked back.

But mastering the instrument was one thing, finding an audience was another. By the time Guy came on the scene, the blues were a struggling art form. There was nothing lucrative about playing music in those days because there wasn’t a crossover to a mainstream audience.

At the time, he says white audiences didn’t have an appetite for the blues, with a few turning up at shows every “once in a while.”

“Nobody was making a decent living off of playing the blues,” he says. “It was going from town to town.” Sometimes he said he just made enough money to make it to the next town.

AP

It was the love of music that kept him and his counterparts playing. But that would soon change in the 1960s with the arrival of a new sound on the airwaves.

“The British,” Guy said succinctly.

More appropriately, he credits the Rolling Stones, whose guitarist Keith Richards and singer Mick Jagger especially admired Guy’s playing and the blues in general.

When the TV variety show “Shindig!” wanted the Stones to appear, Jagger had one condition. “Jagger said I’ll come on the show if you let me bring Muddy Waters. And they say, ‘Who in the hell is that?’ And he said, ‘You mean to tell me you don’t know who Muddy Waters is? We named ourselves after his famous record, ‘Rolling Stone.'”

After that, Guy says the blues exploded.

Riding the wave of Waters, BB King, Otis Rush and other players, Guy found his own style and became one of the most recognizable blues artists of the Chicago blues sound. In 2005, Clapton and King inducted Guy into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

While Guy saw the blues rise from a personal passion to main influence of the biggest rock bands in history, he said his passion has not changed. “I’m playing my guitar for the life that I’m living in this point and time,” he said.

Nowadays, he’s a man on a mission to keep the blues alive because he said there’s just not enough places for people to hear it. “The blues is not being played or heard on your big radio stations anymore,” Guy said.

Guy says even his son was unaware of his significance as a blues player until he was old enough to go a blues club. “He said, ‘Dad, I didn’t know you could do that.’ And he’s been a blues player ever since,” Guy said.

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Sky player Stefanie Dolson is checking in periodically from the Olympics. She was part of the U.S. 3-on-3 team that won a gold medal in the inaugural competition in that event at the Tokyo Games.

I woke up this morning and looked over to the table and saw my gold medal and I just smiled. As a young girl I watched and dreamed of being in the Olympics and winning a gold medal, but this is far beyond what I ever imagined.

Starting with how much heavier the medal is than I thought it would be. It actually hurts my neck to wear it, but that said, I definitely will be wearing it all day today.

It was an unbelievable feeling to know we just won a gold medal. And to be the pioneers of 3-on-3 and make history is something that I will always remember.

People asked me to compare it to winning a national championship and they are both really special. The celebration part of it is the same. The feeling of knowing you’re the best and how hard you worked to get there.

We worked for this and coach Kara (Lawson) had said that it would be harder than you could ever imagine to win. There’s also expectations with USA Basketball that it’s gold or bust. Well, we took the gold!

I have to give a shoutout to Tokyo, they did an incredible job making it feel special. The whole atmosphere leading up to the gold medal game was great starting with the giant drum they were banging during introductions. Tokyo did an amazing job of creating an environment in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak that made it feel huge.

The energy in the building was awesome. I can only imagine what Olympic 3-on-3 will be like when there are fans there.

The games themselves were nerve-wracking. We beat France in a tough one in the semifinals to advance and then won a hard-fought game with Russia. Going into the finals, we knew how physical Russia would be and we were ready for it. We played amazing defense and then when the final buzzer sounded it was like, holy cow we won.

Because of COVID protocols, they had us put the medals around our own teammates necks. Being the tallest of the group, I was chosen for that honor.

After the ceremony I had the pleasure of meeting Yao Ming, who was there cheering on the Chinese team that won the bronze. He asked me who I played for and I told him he had an incredible career. He couldn’t have been nicer and more gracious to take a photo with me.

I must say, he is tall, I’ve never felt that short before!

While we were waiting for the press conference I had a chance to call my family and share this with them since they’ve been such a big part of my basketball experience. It was so cool. My niece was there and obviously my mom was especially excited — one could say embarrassingly excited. I had so many texts from former coaches, teammates and even high school teachers I hadn’t talked to in 10 years.

We got back to the hotel late, around 2 a.m., and wow did USA Basketball make us feel special. Many of the 5-on-5 players were up and waiting for us to celebrate and have some champagne!

Now I’m headed back stateside soon with my medal and a lifetime of memories.

Thanks for following along on my journey.

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Bob Costas doesn’t have outlandish goals for his new talk show. He’s at a point in his career where he isn’t concerned about the size of his audience or how often he appears on TV.

He just wants it to be good.

“What I hope to achieve is something pretty simple,” Costas said. “Somebody walks away from it, or goes to bed thinking, ‘That was interesting, it was in its own way entertaining and it was done well.’ That’s all.”

For Costas, that’s eminently attainable, and given his abilities, easily exceedable.

The 29-time Emmy winner returns to HBO with “Back on the Record with Bob Costas,” which debuts at 10 p.m. Friday. The hourlong show, which also will be available to stream on HBO Max, will air monthly through October. Beginning next year, it will air four episodes quarterly.

Costas, 69, worked with HBO from 2001 to ’09, when he hosted “On the Record with Bob Costas,” which morphed into “Costas Now” in 2005. His new iteration includes two lengthy interviews with guests, a panel discussion and a concluding commentary from Costas. His guests Friday are basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley and Olympic gold-medal gymnast Aly Raisman.

ESPN’s Bomani Jones will add commentary and contribute to the panel discussion. For the first roundtable, he’ll be joined by former pitcher David Cone and former WNBA player Renee Montgomery. The show’s executive producers are longtime HBO producer Jonathan Crystal, former HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and author and ESPN senior writer Howard Bryant.

They’ll cover big issues across the sports landscape that transcend sports. But Costas said his guests won’t always be sports figures.

“The first time around on HBO, just going off the top of my head, we had Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Billy Crystal, Tina Fey,” Costas said. “I particularly like comedians who are interested in sports because it adds some balance to the program. Bill Burr is gonna be on. If you said to him, ‘Just do an hour only about sports,’ he could easily do that because he’s got so much sports material.”

The same holds true for Jones, who hosts the ESPN podcast “The Right Time with Bomani Jones” and regularly appears on ESPN TV and radio. Costas didn’t know him personally before but had been impressed with his work.

“He can go in any direction and comment on almost anything that comes up,” Costas said. “He’s a very good and very self-assured television performer with a strong point of view. If I pick 10 sports subjects at random, he would have a knowledgeable take on all of them. And it doesn’t matter whether I agree with all of them. I don’t want an echo chamber. I want a good discussion.”

Costas continues to have a significant role at MLB Network and contributes on occasion at CNN. But he’ll be remembered most for his career at NBC, where he covered practically every major sporting event. To Chicago sports fans, he’s likely best-known for calling the Saturday MLB “Game of the Week” in the 1980s, following the Bulls’ NBA title runs in the 1990s and hosting 12 Olympics.

With the Summer Games going on in Tokyo, you might think Costas feels out of place being home.

“It’s not strange for me at all,” he said. “I had decided many years before the Rio Olympics that 2016 would be my last Olympics. I just didn’t announce it publicly. So there isn’t much to get used to. I did a dozen. I felt like that was enough.

“I’m very, very glad I did it. I’m glad that it’s an important part of my career and that people still seem to appreciate it. But not even for one second have I ever felt, Oh, if I was there, I would have said this or I would have done that. It’s completely behind me, as it should be.”

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Lollapalooza officially returns to Grant Park this week for four days of music and good times despite concerns about how bringing together over 100,000 people each day will affect the ongoing pandemic.

The festival, which opens Thursday with vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test required for entry, represents the largest public event to date held in Chicago since the emergence of the coronavirus last March. Despite worries over the virus’ Delta variant and rising caseloads nationally, the show will go on this weekend.

Huge acts will be in town luring giant crowds to the park, including Miley Cyrus, Foo Fighters, Post Malone and Tyler, The Creator. Many surrounding streets will be closed through Sunday night.

The Sun-Times will be there all four days covering the big shows and big crowds. Keep this page bookmarked for updates throughout the festival.

Lolla signs warn attendees they assume risk for COVID-19

The thousands of people entering Lollapalooza on Thursday are being greeted by signs explaining something that’s not included on their public health and safety website: By attending the festival, “you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19,” which they mention “can lead to severe illness and death.”

Read the full story here.

Must-see acts to check out

Some of the names on the Lolla lineup are a lot bigger than others. Selena Fragassi parses through the dozens of bands and artists to break down 10 must-see acts that attendees won’t want to miss this weekend. Here’s what Fragassi says about one of the festival’s earliest performers, Orville Peck:

No one exactly knows who this incognito Canadian country singer is (his trademark look is a long, fringed mask and cowboy hat) but the boudoir-looking John Wayne has heaped tons of due praise in his few years on the scene. Both for crafting a highly contagious psychedelic outlaw sound that refreshes the genre and for being an LGBTQ iconoclast whose work with Trixie Mattel and Gaga will soon put him in a new league.

Check out all of our recommended shows here.

How to watch performances live online

Unlike past years, Hulu is the exclusive live streaming partner for Lollapalooza 2021. All Hulu subscribers will be able to watch live performances for free as part of their subscriptions. Complete streaming schedules for all four days are already up on Hulu’s website, although they warn that set times are subject to change.

How will COVID-19 affect the festival?

With coronavirus case figures rising across the country amid lagging vaccination rates and the emergence of the Delta variant, Lollapalooza put in place security measures to help make the festival safer.

For those attending the festival, a vaccination card or proof of negative COVID-19 test will be required for entry. Get more information on how that’ll work here.

Chicago’s top health official, Dr. Alison Arwady, said Tuesday that the city’s virus situation is in “good control” ahead of the festival. However, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said recently that she would not hesitate to impose measures in Chicago such as face covering requirements if the city’s daily caseload keeps rising — and Arwady said she expects “some cases” of COVID-19 to result from the festival being held.

Lineup and schedule

Complete daily schedules for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday can be found here.

The after-show lineup includes Modest Mouse, Journey, Jimmy Eat World and Freddie Gibbs. Check out the complete list of official Lolla after-shows here.

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SAITAMA, Japan — There was plenty of time to talk about it, had they wanted to.

Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton were together on a plane to Tokyo, just days after they had played in the hard-fought NBA Finals.

They had roughly nine hours in the air to relive details of that series, to revisit some of their memorable moments.

Booker and Middleton both had 40-point games in the series. Holiday provided a highlight that will be replayed in Milwaukee for years to come.

So, with all that time to kill on the way to the Olympics, how much talk was about the NBA Finals?

“There was actually none,” Middleton said. “We all respect each other.

“It was all about moving on and figuring out a way to get this job done here. To sit there and talk about the finals was not something that was on anybody’s mind.”

The series ended last Tuesday, when the Bucks won Game 6 to close out Booker’s Phoenix Suns. Middleton and Holiday took part in Milwaukee’s championship parade on Thursday, then flew the next day to Seattle, where they met up with Booker.

It was a whirlwind few days after a draining two-week series. And with the U.S. Olympic opener tipping off less than 24 hours after they landed in Japan, the flight was about the only rest the trio was going to get.

“I feel like me, Book and K-Midd just slept,” Holiday said.

Booker couldn’t be blamed if he didn’t want to talk to two guys who had been responsible for ruining his NBA championship dreams. But he reiterated that he could work with them, just as he could have had the Suns won.

“I said it during the series when we had this question. I have a lot of respect for those guys and when you’re competing at the highest level, it doesn’t always go your way,” Booker said. “But I’m a forward thinker and move onto the next thing and be able to take my ‘L’ and move on.”

That’s not always easy when players have to quickly go from foes to friends.

When Kevin Durant made his Olympic debut in 2012, he acknowledged the difficulty in seeing LeBron James every day so soon after Miami beat Oklahoma City in those NBA Finals. Kobe Bryant said then he didn’t know if he could’ve handled that, figuring if he was Durant he’d have needed to go at James in practice to help get over it.

Booker hasn’t forgotten his disappointment, but he’s not holding it against his new teammates — even after Holiday stole the ball from him and threw an alley-oop pass to Giannis Antetokounmpo in the final moments of Game 5 to swing the series Milwaukee’s way.

“We lost and that’s it, and I’m man enough to accept that and move on,” Booker said. “So, there’s no hate towards Jrue or K-Midd.”

Besides, there were much bigger concerns.

There’s some anxiety for anyone coming to an Olympics, wondering how things are going to work. That’s raised even more this year, with heightened protocols because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The three Americans had to worry about that while knowing they were going to have to play in a game without getting to practice with their team, or even shoot around much with the international basketball that is much different than the leather one used in the NBA.

“If we had a couple weeks to prepare a little bit I think we’d be more used to it, but feeling it for the first time on game day was definitely an adjustment,” Booker said.

It wasn’t a problem for Holiday, who led the Americans with 18 points in their 83-76 loss to France. Booker shot 1 for 6 and Middleton missed both his attempts.

But with a couple days of rest and practice, U.S. coach Gregg Popovich moved Holiday and Booker into the starting lineup Wednesday. Booker had 16 points, Middleton scored 10 and Holiday delivered another strong game in a 120-66 rout of Iran.

The opening loss could make things more difficult for the Americans, but Middleton and Holiday know about digging out of tough spots. The Bucks overcame 2-0 holes in the second round and then again in the NBA Finals.

The Americans, who never had their full team together until the eve of their first game, knew all along the road to gold wouldn’t be easy.

“So a lot of adversity and I feel like this is just something that we do a lot,” Holiday said. “And we’ll accomplish this too, just like we’ve accomplished everything before.”

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Bears radio voice Jeff Joniak can empathize with the baseball announcers who are frustrated being tethered to their home broadcast booths, calling road games off monitors because of issues related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Joniak and analyst Tom Thayer faced the same challenge last season, when they called one road game on site (they drove to the season opener in Detroit) and called the others from the culinary studio at WBBM Newsradio 780. As great as their setup was, it couldn’t replicate being at the stadium.

“Everybody wants to be there. That’s why we do it,” Joniak said. “We know we’re open for criticism because everybody analyses everything these days. But we had to do it.”

This season figures to be less challenging. Most important, Joniak and Thayer will return to the road. WBBM cleared them to travel, though the traveling party will be leaner. Also, sideline reporter Mark Grote will return to the field for home games.

“Things are returning to some semblance of normal,” director of news and programming Ron Gleason said, “but we continue to take many precautions to ensure everyone’s safety.”

That’s also true at training camp, which opened to a limited number of fans Thursday after being closed to the public last year. What won’t change is Joniak and Thayer’s camp coverage, which remained extensive last year despite interviews being moved to Zoom rooms.

“It’s a long list,” Joniak said. “You almost invest the most time of the season in training camp.”

The pair will post videos on the Bears’ platforms in which they break down each position. For WBBM, they’ll shoot daily videos about practice for the website. Their show “Bears All Access” airs at 6 p.m. Thursdays on The Score, barring a Cubs game, and Joniak will host the “Bears Coaches Show” on Monday nights on WBBM.

This season marks Joniak and Thayer’s 25^th together on Bears broadcasts and Joniak’s 21^st as play-by-play voice (he previously hosted the pre- and postgame shows). Joniak is looking forward to a more normal season, and it started with fans back at training camp.

“Training camp is a lot more fun when fans are there,” he said. “And I think it is that way for the players, as well. I think it does ratchet up their competitiveness. It’s gonna feel normal again.”

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Lollapalooza officially returns to Grant Park this week for four days of music and good times despite concerns about how bringing together over 100,000 people each day will affect the ongoing pandemic.

The festival, which opens Thursday with vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test required for entry, represents the largest public event to date held in Chicago since the emergence of the coronavirus last March. Despite worries over the virus’ Delta variant and rising caseloads nationally, the show will go on this weekend.

Huge acts will be in town luring giant crowds to the park, including Miley Cyrus, Foo Fighters, Post Malone and Tyler, The Creator. Many surrounding streets will be closed through Sunday night.

The Sun-Times will be there all four days covering the big shows and big crowds. Keep this page bookmarked for updates throughout the festival.

From the festival on Day 1

Must-see acts to check out

Some of the names on the Lolla lineup are a lot bigger than others. Selena Fragassi parses through the dozens of bands and artists to break down 10 must-see acts that attendees won’t want to miss this weekend. Here’s what Fragassi says about one of the festival’s earliest performers, Orville Peck:

No one exactly knows who this incognito Canadian country singer is (his trademark look is a long, fringed mask and cowboy hat) but the boudoir-looking John Wayne has heaped tons of due praise in his few years on the scene. Both for crafting a highly contagious psychedelic outlaw sound that refreshes the genre and for being an LGBTQ iconoclast whose work with Trixie Mattel and Gaga will soon put him in a new league.

Check out all of our recommended shows here.

How to watch performances live online

Unlike past years, Hulu is the exclusive live streaming partner for Lollapalooza 2021. All Hulu subscribers will be able to watch live performances for free as part of their subscriptions. Complete streaming schedules for all four days are already up on Hulu’s website, although they warn that set times are subject to change.

How will COVID-19 affect the festival?

With coronavirus case figures rising across the country amid lagging vaccination rates and the emergence of the Delta variant, Lollapalooza put in place security measures to help make the festival safer.

For those attending the festival, a vaccination card or proof of negative COVID-19 test will be required for entry. Get more information on how that’ll work here.

Chicago’s top health official, Dr. Alison Arwady, said Tuesday that the city’s virus situation is in “good control” ahead of the festival. However, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said recently that she would not hesitate to impose measures in Chicago such as face covering requirements if the city’s daily caseload keeps rising — and Arwady said she expects “some cases” of COVID-19 to result from the festival being held.

Lineup and schedule

Complete daily schedules for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday can be found here.

The after-show lineup includes Modest Mouse, Journey, Jimmy Eat World and Freddie Gibbs. Check out the complete list of official Lolla after-shows here.

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Over 100,000 people are expected to enter Grant Park each of the four days at Lollapalooza. As they enter, they’re being greeted not just by a requirement for proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test, but by signs informing them that, by attending the festival, they assume all risk related to exposure to the virus.

The signs, captured by a Sun-Times photographer at the festival’s main entrance on Michigan Avenue, explain to festivalgoers something that’s not included on their health and safety website. By attending Lollapalooza, “you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19,” which they mention “can lead to severe illness and death.”

A day before the start of the festival Thursday in downtown Chicago, the city’s top doctor, Dr. Allison Arwady, said the current COVID-19 situation is in “good control” despite rising case numbers due to the Delta variant and lagging vaccination rates.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

“Here in Chicago, we remain actually in quite good control for COVID, but that is not the case around the country,” Arwady said at a City Hall news conference.

Under the rules implemented by the city and the festival’s operator, Live Nation, everyone entering Lollapalooza is required to present a vaccination card or a negative COVID-19 test, which must be obtained within 72 hours of attending. Unvaccinated people must wear face masks, although it’s unclear how the festival would enforce that.

Lollapalooza runs through Sunday with huge acts including Miley Cyrus, Foo Fighters and Post Malone slated to perform.

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Amid a summer bewildering in terms of climate — with the Pacific Northwest experiencing a record heat wave, data suggesting that Chicago is becoming warmer, the devastating floods in western Europe, New Delhi hotter when it should be wetter — it can be useful to consider what India’s governing ideology of the day, Hindutva, means for the global fight against climate change.

The stakes with India are particularly high. It is the world’s largest democracy, home to one-sixth of the world’s population. What happens in India affects the world — including Chicago. And India, today, is perched at the high noon of Hindutva. The Hindutva-oriented Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently began his eighth year in office.

To assess how Hindutva — or Hindu nationalism — relates with climate change, looking at a related relationship can be valuable. In his acclaimed 2009 paper “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” the University of Chicago historian Dipesh Chakrabarty argued that climate change requires us to re-assess how we think about history. Humans now possess a geological agency; we are disrupting the very conditions necessary for our existence. Human history and the history of the natural world have now commingled.

It can similarly be argued that climate change requires us to re-assess how we think about Hindutva. We know that Hindutva is a majoritarian ideology, which impinges on the rights of India’s minorities, particularly Muslims. We know that in the context of the competing majoritarianisms of South Asia — especially in India’s neighbors Pakistan and Banglades h– Hindutva feeds majoritarianism in the region as a whole. But might the ideology also hold global, climatic implications?

Let me make four propositions.

The first proposition is that Hindutva advances spurious science, thereby structurally impairing prospects for combating climate change. Modi and others associated with his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have frequently argued, without evidence, that ancient India mastered modern scientific achievements. They assert that airplanes, nuclear weapons, the internet, and much else was already invented back then. Of late, BJP leaders have recommended drinking cow urine — the cow holy to many Hindus — as a solution to COVID-19. Only recently, Modi’s former health minister helped launch a suspect COVID-19 cure. In such a scientifically spurious context, the pursuit of a hard-nosed, consistent approach to fighting climate change becomes challenging.

The second proposition is that the advancement of Hindutva culture wars distracts attention from pressing issues, including climate change. Much of Modi’s time in power has involved the marginalization of Muslims, particularly over perceived historical wrongs. As just one example, through the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, coupled with the planned National Register of Citizens, Muslims’ place in the Indian polity has been made suspect. These measures are understood to have been advanced to finish the “unfinished business” of British India’s partition in 1947, into India and Pakistan. Muslims alone are wrongly blamed for Partition, and their progeny today are being asked to pay the price. Such governmental measures have spurred extra-governmental actions, too, against Muslims; these have included vigilante lynchings. Any society, any government, possesses only finite time and attention. Internecine culture wars eat up this capacity, pulling attention from real challenges to the grievances of imagined history.

The third proposition is that given Hindutva’s authoritarian quality, it presents a bigger black box compared with transparent, inclusive, accountable democracy. More can go wrong with the climate under Hindutva than under a more democratic-minded regime. Modi runs a highly centralized government, with little space for dissent. He hasn’t held a single press conference on Indian soil as prime minister — barring one where he directed all questions to his deputy Amit Shah. Further, his government and party have harassed the country’s independent media. Much of the mainstream media by this point has taken on the mien of state media, parroting the government’s line. As a result, there is limited questioning, discussion, and accountability over important issues such as climate change.

The fourth proposition is that the tensions that Hindutva nurtures, regionally and internationally, weakens the capacity for concerted action against climate change. In presenting India as a muscular Hindu polity, Hindutva discourse paints Pakistan as an arch Islamist enemy. Irrespective of whether Pakistan is India’s enemy or not, there is an inner compulsion to Hindutva to paint it as such. With such a “muscular” discourse, Modi’s government has alienated Bangladesh as well. His deputy Amit Shah referred to illegal Bangladeshi migrants as “termites,” threatening to throw them into the Bay of Bengal. The CAA-NRC measures drew the opprobrium of multiple countries across the world, precipitating protests globally, including in Chicago. Hindutva’s instigating of such discord weakens the regional, international capacity for fighting climate change.

These four propositions, taken together, elevate the concerns with Hindutva. It becomes disconcerting not only at the level of human rights within India, or at the level of competing regional majoritarianisms — concerns which are grave enough as it is. Hindutva becomes worrisome also at the global, climatic, geological level.

To be clear, I am not making claims regarding how Hinduism, the religion, relates with the fight against climate change. I am arguing about how Hindutva, an ideological-political project, weakens the fight against climate change. Also, India under Modi may, in policy specifics, have sought to address climate change — such as by signing the Paris Agreement. Structurally, however, the country’s approach remains hobbled by Hindutva.

This is bad for the residents of Delhi, who have sweated under the sun even as the clouds have remained unexpectedly dry for much of the summer. It is additionally bad for people all the way in Portland and Vancouver, Bavaria and here in Chicago, who find themselves experiencing wildfires and floods and soaring temperatures. Indeed, Chicago’s future as a city next to a fluctuating lake is contingent on how the world combats climate change. Hindutva may seem a far-off concern, but it has spurred protests in and is shaping the climate here in Chicago. Just as climate change knows no boundaries, the harms of Hindutva know no boundaries, either.

Abhimanyu Chandra recently graduated with an M.A. in South Asian languages and civilization from the University of Chicago.

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A 16-year-old boy initially identified by police as a victim in a double shooting has been charged as a shooter in the attack.

Police had said the teen and a 42-year-old man were shot by someone else in the street Tuesday evening in the 1700 block of North Mango.

But the boy was later arrested as a suspected shooter at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where he was being treated for a gunshot wound to his shoulder, police said. He was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm.

The 42-year-old was struck in his leg and taken to West Suburban Medical Center in good condition, police said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the teen was wounded.

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