How long will home cooking substitute for our favorite restaurants?

The lockdown is growing longer. We are tired of masks and disinfectants and waving through car windows. We are horrified by stories of massive unemployment, lines at food pantries (they used to call those lines breadlines,) and inadequate government response. We want it all to stop. We all want to get into Doc’s DeLorean, ride to the past, and make sure none of this happens. But that ain’t it.

I understand the cineplex owners, the sports moguls, and the restauranteurs who are saying enough is enough, let’s open our doors and go for it. Their livelihoods and the survival of their employees are at stake, all through no fault of their own. I can understand how overwhelming the situation is when the Tribune reports that even Chicago restaurant titans R. J. Melman and Rick Bayless are worried about paying the rent. I want their Leña Bravas and Di Pescaras to survive. I want the Mexican place down the block and the movie palace in the next town to survive too.

So I get the push to open things up, to assume the curve has flattened,  and to think we are all on the verge of being safe. But while I get it, the real question is whether or not I believe it. Will Barb and I be willing to go for a Saturday night date at the AMC, made safer with online ticket purchase, alternate seat placement, and scrubbed down armrests, or will we say “nah, let’s catch that flick when it shows up on HBO in a couple of months.”

Will we be brave and celebrate our next anniversary at one of last year’s 5-star restaurants, keeping our masks on except to sip our Martinis and devour the spicy gulf prawns, or will we feel safer with a romantic dinner at our kitchen table as Alexa serenades us with Billy Joel and Neil Diamond? And how long will it be before I am ready to brave the sweaty fitness center when I can just go to the basement to pound away the extra carbs that are part of my COVID diet?

My decisions won’t all be rational. And you may make different choices. How strange it is that your decisions and mine may be decided by the color of the Kool-Aid you and I drink and which cable station we watch–which way you balance the health vs. economy scales.

But no matter how you tip those scales, the question of the summer is bound to be “if they open it, will you come?”

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In the future, when this day is history, what will future historians say about us, how we live now?  There will be archives, daily news of  life and deaths in these pandemic times.

There are so many heartbreaking stories. Here is one from the Chicago Tribune today.

People are also keeping personal diaries and notebooks.  There are Zoom meetings. And there are blogs, here on ChicagoNow, and elsewhere. There are posts on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and other social media.  There  will be many stories.

And even  when this world as we know  it is gone, like civilizations before us, there will still be records of how we lived here, in these uncertain times.  How we cheered a beautiful day in May, the cloudless blue sky and the blooming lilacs and crabapples. How we put on masks, and planted tomatoes.

But more than that, future scientists will be able to study the impact of how our lives changed, and how the earth changed as well.

The story is in the glacial ice. You can read more about it here, in this article from Popular Mechanics. Much like tree rings, ice  cores tell a story of climate.

They also hold evidence of volcanic dust, atmospheric concentrations,  and ancient viruses. The ice cores contain ash from Krakatoa and radiation from Chernobyl.  And they will tell the story of COVID-19. The evidence  will be there, and the coronavirus, too.

The article explores how the Great Plague in the 1300’s changed the atmosphere and the environment. There have been disasters and plagues before, but humans have survived.

Our lives are very different, today.  We are learning more and more how things are connected, from weather patterns to supply chains.

But already there is less pollution in  cities in the US, and in China–two major polluting nations.  Every day, we are changing. Every day, we have a chance to change the future.

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It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but the lockdown orders currently in place all across the United States might actually provide a major boost of momentum for the sports betting legalization movement. State by state stay-at-home orders were put into place to slow the spread of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, allowing only the essential businesses to remain in operation. 

It has led, expectably, to a major decline in tax revenue. With unemployment now already at Great Depression levels and very few people buying much of anything beyond the basic needs these days, we’ve seen a severe reduction in both income taxes and sales taxes. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, whose states borders the world’s coronavirus epicenter in New York City, said last month that revenues “have fallen off a table.”

So how can that tax revenue shortfall be made up? Expansion of legalized gaming is a tried and true method throughout American history. With sports betting now legal in Colorado, as of May 1, you can now place a legal sports wager in 18 states. That leaves 32 states to go, and the legislative process may now get sped up due to the coronavirus pandemic and its disastrous effect on state economies. 

“We think that this legalization process that is happening at the state level stands to accelerate, and we really think we’ll benefit from that because we operate in more states than any gaming company in the world,” Penn National Gaming CEO Jay Snowden said during an appearance on CNBC this past Thursday. 

It’s a divisive issue to be sure, as the vote tally in Colorado conveyed. The legal sports gaming measure passed in November by a ultra-slim 50.7% to 49.3% margin. However, it’s predicted economic impact is expected to be massive. Legalized sports betting has been forecasted to generate as much as $6 billion annually in bets and $40 million in tax revenue for the Rocky Mountain state.

Those figures might seem surprising, and optimistic, given how there are no sports currently active in the United States, but that’s about to change. NASCAR will restart its season this weekend and PGA Tour golf will return in a few weeks. Both sports will conduct business under strict social distancing guidelines.

And we’ve already seen a major shift already from sports books, as they’ve been taking action on all kinds of activities that one might never expect. It’s more than just sports leagues in foreign countries, as bets have been places on: the weather, political races, television shows, eSports and film casting.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.

You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.

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I had to go out today — my “economic impact” check wasn’t taking itself to the bank. So I wore my good boots, my gray suede “skates” (so nicknamed since they’re as tall as skate boots, but don’t have blades). And yes, I wore a mask into the bank. Again.

As I rode to the bank, I thought it over — I had been saving my good boots for a special occasion. After all, if anything happens to them, the shoe repair shop’s closed and my suede brush is all I have to use.

What was I waiting for? My feet felt better because I was wearing my good “skates.” That was the special part.

It reminded me of times when my parents wanted me to have and enjoy particular pieces of jewelry. My mother passed along some pieces I could wear to work after she retired, and my dad gave me pieces that he had saved since his mother died in 1939.

At first, I wanted to wear my new heirlooms just on special occasions. But when I was first starting out, parties and other special things were thin on my calendar.

But I couldn’t afford new special pieces on my rookie budget, so the heirlooms were the special pieces. I started wearing the special pieces any time I wanted to… and I discovered that wearing something special, telling the special stories, made a special day.

So yes, I’ll have my jeans-and-sweatshirts days at times while the stay-at-home order lasts. But just as I’ve learned that putting on makeup helps me look better on Zoom conference calls, wearing special jewelry or clothing will help. Back to the jewelry box!

Getting out my big, red glass brooch and pinning it on a scarf or sweater — while I still can before it’s too hot — will help me share the story of Dad buying it as a boy for his mother for her birthday, paying a whole dollar. Wearing my mother’s locket or aquamarine necklace will bring out their stories, too, even if the objects are just little blue or gold sparkles on Zoom.

In this gloomy time, I need a special occasion, right this very minute. I’m glad it’s as close as the jewelry box.

Margaret Serious has a page on Facebook. 

Joining the Bears, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox, the Blackhawks now have their own face masks with team logos on them. The NHL will donate its royalties from the purchase by the vendor to Feeding America (for US sales) and Food Banks Canada (for Canadian sales).

Blackhawks masks are available for purchase here.
Tribune Publishing may earn a commission if you purchase a product through one of our links.

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Big tech is bigger than ever and in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, they’re only going loom larger. We’re more reliant on giant tech companies than ever before these days, and in the era of social distancing, this reliance will only increase. We’re currently in a world of working remotely apps, learning at a distance apps and socializing online apps.

It’s not going away any time soon either. Zoom is a company that we’re all now familiar with. It didn’t even exist until 2011, and wasn’t profitable until just last year. By February, Zoom had gained 2.22 million users in 2020 — more than they amassed for all of 2019. Daily average users rose from about 10 million in December 2019 to about 200 million in March 2020.

It’s not just work, but also fun that’s going virtual. For the first time in the NFL Draft’s entire history, it had no brick-and-mortar component. That late April weekend was huge for the popular DraftKings sportsbook app, as the daily fantasy sports company and bookmaker saw a major rise in users and traffic.

“It was a really big betting event relative to prior years,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said to CNBC. “It shows that there’s pent-up demand. People want football. People want traditional sports. I think when you do see a return to play, it’s going to be a really, really big deal for the country.”

In all crises there are opportunities, and in all situations where IRL is forbidden, people will move their activities into cyberspace. Robins added that “e-sports has been absolutely exploding” and that they’ve “also seen alternative sports like table tennis really start to pick up in popularity.”

Taiwan had the only active baseball league in the world from April 11 until May 5, when South Korea joined them. The only fans at the early Taiwanese regular season baseball games were robots.

NASCAR returns to action this Sunday, and the work being done by the tiny amount of reporters being allowed in to cover the race will be done via Zoom. As more sports come back, the more sports betting and daily fantasy sports apps will see their growth take of. People are so starving for sports right now, it’s easy to see even the never soccer crowd get into the German Bundesliga, which comes back on Saturday.

By the way, for everyone who tells you that joke about how they should have bought stock in Zoom, it’s not laughable. The tech company’s per share price was under $70 in January, but up to $150 by the end of March. It went up another 7% to close at $166.48 today. 

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.

You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.

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1,355,543 confirmed cases
81,357 deaths

Remember when Donald Trump had daily coronavirus task force press briefings daily? They gave us classics such as bleach would cure the virus. They went so poorly that he was convinced to stop doing them. But Don misses being in the spotlight. He misses being the center of attention. So yesterday, he went live from the White House rose garden. It went as well as you would expect.

In an event that was suppose to focus on testing in United States, the lowlights were anything but that. These are what anyone who watched took away:

Democrats don’t want to open the government.
Obamagate
Ask China.

Let’s take them in order.

Trump has been complaining that the blue states have been slow to start the reopening process. The red states have been moving quickly…ever since Don said the word “Liberate.” It’s been a disaster in most of them. We’ve seen restaurants that are suppose to be one quarter full overloaded with people who are over anxious to get out into public. One Colorado restaurant was closed by the state health department because of this. Plus cases of the coronavirus have risen in those states. They moved too fast….way too fast.

But instead of that, Trump is focusing on the states led by Democratic governors. He said they’re staying closed to intentionally hurt him. They would be willing to stay closed until November, if possible.

Pssssst…Don…two things about this:
Better safe than sorry, right?
You’re never winning in New York, California or Illinois; so maybe quit worrying about how they’re doing business and focus on the states you can win?

Next is what Donnie is calling Obamagate. Over the weekend former President Obama called out Trump for his handling of the pandemic. You rarely, if  ever, see a former POTUS dissing the current POTUS. It’s just not done in the United States of America. But Barack did it and you know Trump isn’t going to take it without a response. He went on a Mother’s Day Twitter spree where he attacked a multitude of things. Among them was how Obama was the biggest crook that ever resided on Pennsylvania Ave. Hence, Obamagate.

When Pulitzer prize winning Washington Post reporter Phillip Rucker asked him to be more specific about the crimes, Trump gave this answer:

“It’s a disgrace that it happened. Some terrible things happened….and you’ll be seeing over the coming weeks. You know what the crime is. The crime is obvious to everybody.”

Obvious? Really? Phil asked for specifics and that’s what you gave him? Oh yeah, Trump did say that every newspaper is writing about it except his. Hmmm…I went looking for the Obamagate crimes in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. Nothing! Nada! ZIP!!! But everyone is writing about? I guess I need to look harder. If I find something, I’l let you and Phil Rucker know.

Both of the above would be enough to make all of us shake our heads in shock, but because it’s Donald Trump, you know he’s going for more. He always does.

Towards the end of the briefing, he had an exchange with CBS reporter Weija Jiang:

Jiang: “Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives and we’re still seeing more cases every day?”
Trump: Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me. Ask China that question. OK? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer.”
Jiang: “Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically — that I should ask China?”
Trump: “I’m not saying it specifically to anybody. I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that.”
Jiang: “That’s not a nasty question. Why does it matter?”

Donald Trump hates strong women. He has a history of attacking women reporters who asks what he feels are disrespectful questions. He hits harder on women of color. Today was Weija Jiang’s turn to be attacked by the President of the United States.

There’s your trifecta of ridiculous behavior at another Donald Trump press conference. Oh yeah, he ended it by ignoring CNN’s Kaitlan Collins after he called on her to ask a question. Trump blew her off and walked off the stage like the little bitch that he is.

Just another day at the White House in 2020.

Donald Trump: “We have met the moment and we have prevailed.”
1,355,543 confirmed cases
81,357 deaths

Related Post: It’s scarier than usual to work in Donald Trump’s White House

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