Two teens were shot, one fatally, April 22, 2021, in Maine Township. | Adobe Stock Photo
The teens were shot about 3:45 p.m. in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 9600 block of Greenwood Avenue, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office.
Two teens were shot, one fatally, Thursday in unincorporated Maine Township in the northwest suburbs.
The teens were shot about 3:45 p.m. in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 9600 block of Greenwood Avenue, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office.
Officials say the teens, an 18-year-old man and woman, were getting into a vehicle when someone dressed in black walked up and opened fire.
The man, Erik Esquivel, was struck in the head and pronounced dead at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, officials said. The woman was in serious condition at the same hospital with a gunshot wound to her arm.
The suspected gunman was wearing a black hoodie with orange script, black pants, a black knit cap and a black gaiter mask, the sheriff’s office said. He fled in a tan Jeep Cherokee.
Last month, Major League Baseball announced several rule changes for the minor leagues, the most profound being the elimination of the defensive shift at the Class AA level this season. It’s not an experiment. It’s a herald, a death knell and, if you’re anything like me, cause for a national day of celebration.
Some day soon, big-league infielders will have to stay at their traditional posts. All four fielders will have to keep their feet in the dirt, with two infielders positioned on either side of second base. You know, as nature intended.
Now, I realize this puts me in the King Tut demographic, made up of men and women who watch baseball though the bandages of ancient history. But is watching a left-handed hitter ground out to shallow right field fun? No, it is not. Is it good for the game? Only if you want to see less hitting. I don’t.
It’s reasonable to believe that a major-league hitter should be able to spray the ball to the opposite side, defeating the shift. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about aesthetics and creating the best product possible in a world losing interest in the game. Baseball is not better with the defensive shift, just as it wasn’t better with a turnstile of relievers facing one hitter apiece.
I’d prefer to see a left-handed hitter be rewarded for hitting a ball hard into the hole between first and second than a manager be rewarded for moving his shortstop to the right side of the infield. That means I prefer brawn over brains, athleticism over analytics. That means I’m old, with socks falling around my ankles and a full menu of medical complaints to share with complete strangers, but what can I say? I don’t find the shift fun, and, if fun isn’t the whole idea of sports, then we’re lost.
The major-league batting average so far this season is a miserable .233, but it will go up as temperatures do. If recent history is any guide, though, that average won’t soar. Last season, the batting average in baseball was .245, the lowest since 1972. In 2018, the average was .248. A lot of this has to do with the proliferation of strikeouts, with lots of pitchers throwing 95 mph-plus and lots of hitters swinging for the fences. But the shift surely has played a role in taking hits away from hitters and lowering batting averages.
Why, in a sport struggling to keep fans’ attention, would you want to do that?
Why would I want to see the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo, a powerful pull hitter, try to send a grounder to the other side?
It’s impossible to make the argument that the way baseball is played now is more pleasing to the eye than it was even 20 years ago.
It has always been a thinking man’s game. It’s so full of numbers now that you’d think you were pondering actuarial tables instead of box scores. And that’s fine. As I’ve written before, analytics are simply a different way of describing the game. A different language. The temptation is to say “like Klingon,” but I’m better than that. The problem lately is that the language, not the action, too often is the focus.
From an analytical standpoint, the shift makes perfect sense. From an entertainment standpoint, it’s a show killer for many of us.
If you’re entertained by a manager outfoxing his counterpart in the other dugout, I would suggest that you’re missing the point of baseball, which is the beauty of a hitter swinging a bat, a pitcher grunting on a maximum-effort fastball or a center fielder leaping to steal a home run. Very little about it should resemble a Rubik’s Cube being manipulated.
The game is big enough for all of us — for the traditionalists shaking a fist at the sky, for the nerds staring at their computers and for everyone in-between. But all involved should keep their eye on the ball, the ball being the good of a game that is laboring to stay relevant. Getting a consensus on that isn’t easy. My good might be your bad. But the idea is not just to keep fans in seats. It’s to keep them on the edge of their seats. Decisions should be made with that in mind.
It’s not good theater when a hitter drills a line drive to a second baseman playing him perfectly in the grass in right field. It’s a letdown, a disappointment, a repudiation of what baseball is supposed to reward.
It’s true that things change in life. It’s also true that sometimes things change back to what they were — better.
A documentary about the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain is coming to theaters this summer.
Directed by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville, Focus Features said Friday that “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” will hit theaters on July 16.
Bourdain shot to fame after the publication of his frank, behind-the-scenes account of restaurant life in “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” in 2000 and became a beloved culinary travel guide with his CNN series “Parts Unknown.” He died in June 2018 at age 61.
Neville is best known for his Oscar-winning film “20 Feet from Stardom,” about the lives of backup singers, and the Mr. Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.”
After its theatrical run, “Roadrunner” will be available on CNN and HBO Max. It’ll have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June.
Chef Art Smith, who was Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef and is co-owner of several Chicago restaurants, said of Bourdain upon learning of his death: “One thing that Anthony taught us all is that you may be a chef, but you’re more than that. We all have a message. Anthony, with his work, had this wonderful story line and really captured the essence of humanity.”
Former Interim Chicago Police Supt. Charlie Beck attempted to clear the air with the city’s current top cop Friday after David Brown said his predecessor’s de-centralized crime strategy “wasn’t working” and said Beck didn’t take police reform seriously enough.
In an interview with the Sun-Times, Beck pushed back on Brown’s claims and criticized his decision to abandon Beck’s attempts to put more dedicated officers in the community and instead create roving citywide teams of cops to fight crime.
Beck explained the “community-oriented style” he embraced pushes resources “as close as possible” to the areas they serve to foster relationships between citizens and police and build “healthy neighborhoods” that “don’t need the police so much because they have standards.”
He said Brown’s reconfiguration is “a more militaristic, shock-and-awe style of policing” with centralized resources deployed to hot spots. Ironically, that form of policing originated in Los Angeles in the 1960’s. Beck said Brown copied that “metropolitan division” during his tenure in Dallas and has copied it again in Chicago.
“It has a major drawback. That is, it tends to alienate the community that’s involved. You just cannot saturate neighborhoods with police and expect that to be a long-term strategy. It’ll work in the short-term. But it can’t be your go-to. It has to be something for emergencies,” Beck said.
In his phone call with Brown, Beck said he “recommended that he go back to a community-based strategy as soon as he could. And he agreed with that.”
A retired L.A. police chief, Beck held down the fort after the drinking and driving incident that prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot to fire former Police Supt. Eddie Johnson, whose retirement she had celebrated just days before.
During Beck’s brief tenure in Chicago, he ordered one of the most sweeping reorganizations in the history of the Chicago Police Department. He put hundreds of officers and detectives back in neighborhood districts.
With homicides, shootings and civil unrest surging, Brown reversed field last summer and created large units that can be mobilized across the city to fight crime. It stripped neighborhood police districts of “four to six” officers on each watch to prevent a third round of looting downtown.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown speaks during a news conference Thursday at CPD headquarters on the South Side.Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
At a news conference Thursday that marked his first year in office, Brown appeared to violate the rules of the policing fraternity by blaming his predecessor.
“I just try not to do stuff that doesn’t work. That structure wasn’t working,” he said.
“The facts are, the old structure wasn’t working in the new landscape of global pandemic and a social justice movement around race.”
After reading a Sun-Times story about the press conference, Beck was understandably miffed.
On Friday, he called Brown to, as he put it, “clarify some things” and clear the air. Brown didn’t apologize.
“He said he didn’t use my name. … He said the strategies because of the spike in violence –104 murders in July — he had to reorganize in order to put enough boots on the ground to effect that immediately,” Beck said.
Beck took the high road. He said he wants both Chicago and Brown to “do well.”
“I don’t want this to be a Charlie-David dispute about who’s the better superintendent,” he said.
“I’ll stand by my numbers. I’m totally secure about what I did in L.A. I had much better numbers than Dallas did. I’m totally secure in what I did in the short time I was in Chicago. We had better numbers than are occurring now. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s about what can we do to make Chicago a better place.”
Having said that, Beck took issue with Brown’s claim that his predecessor did not take compliance with a federal consent decree “very seriously,” forcing Brown and his top aides to “dig ourselves out of a hole.”
Beck said it took L.A. 12 years to get out from under a consent decree and it’ll surely take Chicago “at least half that.”
“I know that the things I did highly emphasized it. But is six months enough time to complete it? No. Not even close. It isn’t a checking the box thing. It’s training. It’s many other things that take a long time,” Beck said.
“He’s right. Chicago is still in a hole. I was busy filling it when I was there. What I was trying to do in everything I did was prepare Chicago in a way I knew would succeed in the future. I had no reasonable belief that, in a short amount of time, that I could finish the job. I was trying to frame the house so it had everything ready to be finished.”
Earlier this week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot brushed aside complaints from Chicago aldermen who consider Brown about as low-profile a superintendent as Chicago ever has had on high-profile cases, including the police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
That’s the antithesis of Beck, whose public persona is so larger-than-life, it inspired the television show, “Blue Bloods.”
Asked Friday whether he believes the low-key Brown should be more visible, Beck would only say, “Everybody has their own personal style. That’s not my style.”
Although he has watched the Adam Toledo shooting video, Beck refused to pass judgement on it.
He would only say that he believes the news media needs to “take ownership” of “augmenting” and “re-lighting” the photo” of Adam with his hands up and “printing it as if that was what the officer’s point of view would be.”
Illinois’ average statewide COVID-19 testing positivity rate fell to its lowest point in three weeks Friday as public health officials reported 3,369 new cases of the disease.
They were diagnosed among 104,795 tests, sending the positivity rate down to 3.6% and continuing an 11-day streak without any increases in that key metric, which indicates how rapidly the virus is spreading.
The Illinois Department of Public Health also reported a third straight night of decreasing COVID-19 hospitalizations, easing concerns — for now — that a third statewide spike in infections that started last month could spiral further out of control. Hospitals across the state were treating 2,112 COVID-19 patients Thursday night.
Chicago’s regional positivity rate is down to 5.1% compared to 5.7% a week ago, while the city’s daily rate has fallen by 15%.
2:10 p.m. Payroll Protection Plan paid off for Illinois banks; see which of them got the most money
Illinois banks issued 239,000 loans under the federal Paycheck Protection Program worth $29 billion to businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic — and collected at least $1.5 billion in fees ultimately paid by taxpayers, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis finds.
Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank got the most money in fees: at least $232 million for handling 34,000 loans that totaled $6 billion that the banking company’s top executive has said contributed heavily to “a good” first quarter of 2021.
BMO Harris’s PPP loans ranged from just $133 to the maximum amount allowed under the program — $10 million.
The 360 banks with headquarters in Illinois made loans through the program to businesses in all 50 states and four U.S. territories.
Illinois ranked 10th among states for total fees and seventh for dollars provided in the loans, which did not need to be repaid as long as businesses spent all of the money to keep employees on the payroll and pay rent and utilities.
1 p.m. US drop in vaccine demand has some places turning down doses
JACKSON, Miss. — Louisiana has stopped asking the federal government for its full allotment of COVID-19 vaccine. About three-quarters of Kansas counties have turned down new shipments of the vaccine at least once over the past month. And in Mississippi, officials asked the federal government to ship vials in smaller packages so they don’t go to waste.
As the supply of coronavirus vaccine doses in the U.S. outpaces demand, some places around the country are finding there’s such little interest in the shots, they need to turn down shipments.
“It is kind of stalling. Some people just don’t want it,” said Stacey Hileman, a nurse with the health department in rural Kansas’ Decatur County, where less than a third of the county’s 2,900 residents have received at least one vaccine dose.
The dwindling demand for vaccines illustrates the challenge that the U.S. faces in trying to conquer the pandemic while at the same time dealing with the optics of tens of thousands of doses sitting on shelves when countries like India and Brazil are in the midst of full-blown medical emergencies.
12:15 p.m. N95 masks, now plentiful, should no longer be reused: FDA
The Biden administration has taken the first step toward ending an emergency exception that allowed hospitals to ration and reuse N95 medical masks, the first line of defense between frontline workers and the deadly coronavirus.
Thousands of medical providers have died in the COVID-19 pandemic, many exposed and infected while caring for patients without adequate protection.
Critical shortages of masks, gowns, swabs, and other medical supplies prompted the Trump administration to issue guidelines for providers to ration, clean, and reuse disposable equipment. Thus, throughout the pandemic, once a week many doctors and nurses were issued an N95 mask, which is normally designed to be tossed after each patient.
Now U.S. manufacturers say they have vast surpluses for sale, and hospitals say they have three to 12 month stockpiles.
11:30 a.m. Limited number of walk-in COVID-19 vaccine appointments start today at city-run clinics
The vaccine “Hunger Games” are over.
After four months of frustration for thousands of residents who scrambled to claim fleeting batches of COVID-19 vaccination appointments, Chicago finally has enough doses to provide a shot to anyone who wants one, the city’s top doctor said Thursday.
Thanks to a “softening” of vaccine demand in other parts of Illinois and growth in supply provided by the federal government, “you can get one today, no excuses,” according to Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady.
10:45 a.m. Topless clubs in Las Vegas among Nevada businesses allowed to reopen under COVID protocols
LAS VEGAS — Topless dancers in Las Vegas can soon shed coronavirus restrictions along with some of their clothing and once again get face-to-face with patrons under rules accepted Thursday by a Nevada COVID-19 task force.
But masks still will be required for adult entertainment employees and will still be recommended for customers.
Strip clubs that went dark when Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered casinos, clubs and nonessential businesses closed in March 2020 will be able to open May 1 at 80% of fire code capacity under strict social distancing guidelines.
The rules will allow strip club entertainers to get closer than three feet to patrons if the entertainer has gotten at least a first coronavirus vaccination 14 days earlier, according to county rules or if the dancers test negative in a weekly COVID test.
Occupancy limits will be relaxed but not completely lifted at many other businesses — stores, spas and saunas, restaurants and bars, even karaoke clubs — under a new reopening plan adopted by Clark County officials.
9 a.m. National Spelling Bee revamps to ensure single champion in pandemic-altered competition.
WASHINGTON– The Scripps National Spelling Bee is undergoing a major overhaul to ensure it can identify a single champion, adding vocabulary questions and a lightning-round tiebreaker to this year’s pandemic-altered competition.
The 96-year-old bee has in the past included vocabulary on written tests but never in the high-stakes oral competition rounds, where one mistake eliminates a speller. The only previous tiebreaker to determine a single champion was a short-lived extra written test that never turned out to be needed.
The changes, announced this week, amount to a new direction for the bee under executive director J. Michael Durnil, who started in the job earlier this year.
Wednesday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 2,765 new cases of the coronavirus diagnosed among 81,133 tests to keep the average statewide positivity rate at 3.8%. After doubling over the course of a month, that key metric has now fallen or held steady for nine straight days.
As of this week, more than 40% of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine and 26% are fully vaccinated. Though it wasn’t planned this way, more normal human life is returning just as the redbuds, azaleas, magnolias and tulips are performing their gorgeous annual affirmation of renewal. Fears of catastrophic depression, widespread shortages and massive civil unrest are receding.
Hundreds of thousands of American families and millions worldwide are bereaved, and nearly everyone has experienced some form of disruption, pain or trauma during the past year. But not everything changed for the worse.
A recent Pew poll found that among adults whose jobs can be conveniently performed online, 54% would like to continue working from home after the pandemic is over. Another 33% said they’d like to do so part time. If employers agree, then that could mark a dramatic change in many areas of American life — less road congestion, reduced demand for office space and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from cars and buses. That also means less income for real estate landlords, bus drivers, restaurants, dry cleaners, delivery services and other businesses that serve office workers. There will be many dislocations and adjustments.
A still frame from video recorded by a Chicago police officer’s body-worn camera shows Adam Toledo just before he was shot by the officer. | Civilian Office of Police Accountability
I believe the officer who shot the 13-year-old should not be charged with a crime nor treated like a criminal nor be disciplined, though it’s clear he made a grievous and fatal error.
It all happened so fast.
Barely two and a half minutes after police say Ruben Roman, accompanied by 13-year-old Adam Toledo, fired at a passing car on 24th Street in Little Village, a Chicago police officer shot and killed the boy in a nearby alley.
Two and a half minutes.
Enough time for Roman, 21, and Adam to run north on Sawyer Avenue before ducking into the L-shaped alley along the back side of Farragut High School.
Enough time for a police dispatcher to report the detection by a ShotSpotter sensor of gunshots in the neighborhood and for two responding police officers to speed into the same alley and engage in a foot chase that would end in the tragic, split-second confrontation.
Enough time for multiple worlds to be turned upside-down. But still just two and a half minutes.
We know how long it took in part because both events were captured on the same video by a security camera at the high school. It points dispassionately over a parking lot toward the gap in the alley fence and beyond to a stoplight at 24th and Kedzie.
I hadn’t noticed the initial incident during the many times I’d viewed the video, my concentration fixed on the alley in anticipation of the foot chase, until I finally saw the blowup version provided by police.
Some say it doesn’t matter what happened before Adam was shot, that the only thing that matters is that his hands were empty and raised at the moment he was killed.
Of course, it matters. It all matters, every fateful second.
I stopped by Little Village to see for myself the site of the shooting. I’m glad I did because the makeshift shrine to the 13-year-old made me more mindful of the pain his death has caused this community.
Stacks of veladoras, the prayer candles popular with Mexican Americans, two basketballs, a football, a soccer ball and unopened boxes of Legos were among the many offerings left at the spot where he died. Weeks after his death, it remains a heartbreaking scene.
Seeing it — feeling it — was a reminder for me to tread softly because I have something to say that will not be popular with many of those who feel affected by the boy’s death.
Based on the evidence available to date, I believe the police officer who shot Adam Toledo should not be charged with a crime. He should not be treated like a criminal. I don’t even think he should be disciplined by the police department, even though it is clear he made a grievous and fatal error.
The officer, who has not been named by the Sun-Times because he has been accused of no crime, is not the latest Derek Chauvin or even the latest Jason Van Dyke. And those who lump them together under the heading of “police violence” are doing no favor to their cause.
This does not denigrate the life of this boy nor does it demean his family. It only recognizes that each case must be decided on its merits. And, in this case, the police officer was justified in believing he needed to defend himself.
To arrive at that conclusion, you don’t even need to apply the legal standard, just the human one: Walk a minute in the other man’s shoes.
Mark Brown / Sun-TimesA makeshift shrine occupies the gap in the fence where 13-year-old Adam Toledo stopped and was shot by Chicago police officer.
On the night Adam Toledo was killed, two people from Little Village made calls to 911 to report shots fired just after 2:30 a.m.
One came from a man, the other from a woman.
Both callers sounded concerned but not panicked the way some people might be, the way I might be if it happened outside my home, perhaps because this is a neighborhood accustomed to the sound of gunshots.
The recordings of their calls got me thinking: What do people want when they call 911 to report gunfire?
They want the police to respond. And they want them to respond quickly. They want the police to do something. To catch the person with the gun if possible. To do what they can to make the gunfire stop.
If that means chasing those believed responsible, then they want them chased, even down a dark alley if that’s what it requires.
This is society’s expectation. It is the responsibility we place on police. It’s why we arm them with guns.
In return, we make a pact with the police: If officers act in good faith, if they conduct themselves reasonably, if they carry out their duties as they have been trained within the law, then we will allow them to use their guns to protect themselves.
I’m very much aware that I’m the old, white guy in this conversation that, in part, is about racism and, on top of that, someone who tends to view the police in a more sympathetic light.
So it’s fair that you might wonder how I reacted to the video of Adam’s death.
I cried. My chest heaved. I turned it off and walked away. Then, I returned and watched it again to the end.
As I did, I grieved for the boy, and I grieved for his family, and I grieved for the police officer and his family — and for our city.
If you really watched the video, then you know the police officer was distraught in the knowledge he had taken a life.
He had no way of knowing the 5-foot-9 Adam Toledo was 13 years old, no way of knowing his gun was empty of ammunition.
But he knew someone had fired a gun and that this young male was carrying a gun and that sometimes young males fire their guns at the police.
Some people say Adam Toledo did everything right and was shot anyway. But he didn’t do everything right. He was at the scene of a shooting. When the police arrived, he was carrying a gun. And he ran.
And then, when he was caught, he foolishly tried to ditch the gun, without the police officer noticing, in the process shielding the officer’s view of the hand holding the gun as he turned.
Then, as he raised his hands in surrender, the police officer fired.
In hindsight, we know pulling the trigger was the wrong decision. But can any of us say we wouldn’t have done the same thing if we were in his shoes?
That’s what I see on those recordings, though only after slowing them down. I defy anyone to watch the videos in real time and tell me they could see what happened.
Some argue that the police need to change their tactics, end foot chases or perform them differently. Maybe so. It’s worth a discussion. But you can’t impose that standard after the fact on this police officer.
Major League Baseball appears to be moving away from the defensive shift, which has taken away from the beauty of the game. | Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
Is watching a left-handed hitter ground out to shallow right field fun? No, it is not. Is it good for the game? Only if you want to see less hitting.
Last month, Major League Baseball announced several rule changes for the minor leagues, the most profound being the elimination of the defensive shift at the Class AA level this season. It’s not an experiment. It’s a herald, a death knell and, if you’re anything like me, cause for a national day of celebration.
Some day soon, big-league infielders will have to stay at their traditional posts. All four fielders will have to keep their feet in the dirt, with two infielders positioned on either side of second base. You know, as nature intended.
Now, I realize this puts me in the King Tut demographic, made up of men and women who watch baseball though the bandages of ancient history. But is watching a left-handed hitter ground out to shallow right field fun? No, it is not. Is it good for the game? Only if you want to see less hitting. I don’t.
It’s reasonable to believe that a major-league hitter should be able to spray the ball to the opposite side, defeating the shift. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about aesthetics and creating the best product possible in a world losing interest in the game. Baseball is not better with the defensive shift, just as it wasn’t better with a turnstile of relievers facing one hitter apiece.
I’d prefer to see a left-handed hitter be rewarded for hitting a ball hard into the hole between first and second than a manager be rewarded for moving his shortstop to the right side of the infield. That means I prefer brawn over brains, athleticism over analytics. That means I’m old, with socks falling around my ankles and a full menu of medical complaints to share with complete strangers, but what can I say? I don’t find the shift fun, and, if fun isn’t the whole idea of sports, then we’re lost.
The major-league batting average so far this season is a miserable .233, but it will go up as temperatures do. If recent history is any guide, though, that average won’t soar. Last season, the batting average in baseball was .245, the lowest since 1972. In 2018, the average was .248. A lot of this has to do with the proliferation of strikeouts, with lots of pitchers throwing 95 mph-plus and lots of hitters swinging for the fences. But the shift surely has played a role in taking hits away from hitters and lowering batting averages.
Why, in a sport struggling to keep fans’ attention, would you want to do that?
Why would I want to see the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo, a powerful pull hitter, try to send a grounder to the other side?
It’s impossible to make the argument that the way baseball is played now is more pleasing to the eye than it was even 20 years ago.
It has always been a thinking man’s game. It’s so full of numbers now that you’d think you were pondering actuarial tables instead of box scores. And that’s fine. As I’ve written before, analytics are simply a different way of describing the game. A different language. The temptation is to say “like Klingon,’’ but I’m better than that. The problem lately is that the language, not the action, too often is the focus.
From an analytical standpoint, the shift makes perfect sense. From an entertainment standpoint, it’s a show killer for many of us.
If you’re entertained by a manager outfoxing his counterpart in the other dugout, I would suggest that you’re missing the point of baseball, which is the beauty of a hitter swinging a bat, a pitcher grunting on a maximum-effort fastball or a center fielder leaping to steal a home run. Very little about it should resemble a Rubik’s Cube being manipulated.
The game is big enough for all of us — for the traditionalists shaking a fist at the sky, for the nerds staring at their computers and for everyone in-between. But all involved should keep their eye on the ball, the ball being the good of a game that is laboring to stay relevant. Getting a consensus on that isn’t easy. My good might be your bad. But the idea is not just to keep fans in seats. It’s to keep them on the edge of their seats. Decisions should be made with that in mind.
It’s not good theater when a hitter drills a line drive to a second baseman playing him perfectly in the grass in right field. It’s a letdown, a disappointment, a repudiation of what baseball is supposed to reward.
It’s true that things change in life. It’s also true that sometimes things change back to what they were — better.
In this March 3, 2021 file photo, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., speaks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Johnson, questioned the need for widespread COVID-19 vaccinations, saying in a radio interview “what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?” Johnson, who has no medical expertise or background, made the comments Thursday, April 22, during an interview with conservative talk radio host Vicki McKenna. | AP
Contrary to what medical experts advise, Johnson has said he doesn’t need to be vaccinated because he had COVID-19 in the fall.
MADISON, Wis. — Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, questioned the need for widespread COVID-19 vaccinations, saying in a radio interview “what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?”
Johnson, who has no medical expertise or background, made the comments Thursday during an interview with conservative talk radio host Vicki McKenna. Contrary to what medical experts advise, Johnson has said he doesn’t need to be vaccinated because he had COVID-19 in the fall. On Thursday, he went further, questioning why anyone would get vaccinated or worry about why others have not.
“For the very young, I see no reason to be pushing vaccines on people.” Johnson said. “I certainly am going to vigorously resist any kind of government use or imposing of vaccine passports. … That could be a very freedom-robbing step and people need to understand these things.”
Johnson’s comments come as health officials in the U.S. and around the world urge people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as soon as possible, saying that reaching herd immunity is the best shot at stopping the uncontrolled spread of the virus.
Herd immunity occurs when enough people have been vaccinated or have immunity from natural infection that the virus can’t easily spread and the pandemic fizzles out. Nobody knows for sure what the herd immunity threshold is for the coronavirus, but many experts say it’s 70% or higher. And the emergence of variants is further complicating the picture.
In Wisconsin, more than 41% of the population has received at least one shot of vaccine and roughly 30% has been fully vaccinated. But demand for vaccinations has slowed in parts of the U.S. in a worrisome sign.
Johnson, a former plastics manufacturer with a bachelor’s degree in business and accounting, said he doesn’t think people should feel pressured to get vaccinated.
“The science tells us the vaccines are 95% effective, so if you have a vaccine quite honestly what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?” Johnson said. “What is it to you? You’ve got a vaccine and science is telling you it’s very, very effective. So why is this big push to make sure everybody gets a vaccine? And it’s to the point where you’re going to shame people, you’re going to force them to carry a card to prove that they’ve been vaccinated so they can still stay in society. I’m getting highly suspicious of what’s happening here.”
The interview ended before Johnson explained what he was suspicious of.
On Friday, Johnson issued a statement doubling down on his earlier comments.
“Everyone should have the right to gather information, consult with their doctor and decide for themselves whether to get vaccinated,” Johnson said, noting his support for former President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program to quickly develop a vaccine. “Now I believe government’s role (and therefore my role) is to help ensure transparency so that people have as much information as possible to make an informed decision for themselves.”
Johnson said it was legitimate to question whether people with a low risk of suffering a serious illness from COVID-19 should get vaccinated. He promised to “vigorously oppose” vaccine passports.
Republicans have portrayed vaccine passports as a heavy-handed intrusion into personal freedom and private health choices. They currently exist in only one state — a limited government partnership in New York with a private company — but that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers in a handful of states from rushing out legislative proposals to ban their use.
Johnson has not said yet whether he will seek a third term in 2022. A number of Democrats have already announced they are running, including Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson.
Nelson tweeted that Johnson’s “scientifically illiterate beliefs are deadly and will only prolong the Covid crisis. Time for a new Senator.”
Godlewski also blasted Johnson, saying he “is literally campaigning against widespread vaccines. His denial of science isn’t just irresponsible, it’s downright dangerous, and Wisconsinites deserve so much better.”
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22465661/SUPTBROWN_042321_06.jpg)
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22465506/CV_UNION_033021_08.jpg)
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22465259/toledo.jpg)
