I love this great, satirical campaign ad from Kat Abughazaleh.  It’s extremely clever, while getting across her agenda.  As it happens, I’ve made a couple of small donations to her campaign previously, and only came across the ad because someone else loved it and posted it on Twitter.  She’s running for the IL-9 district, which is currently represented by the wonderful Jan Schakowsky who is retiring – and whose district my folks were in.

Interestingly, I actually have had dinner with who I just found out is her Democratic opponent in the race -- and even wrote about him here a while back.  Daniel Biss, who has served in the Illinois statehouse and currently is the mayor of Evanston, where the beloved Northwestern is.  He's the grandson of a great "grande dame" I adored, who lived on the same floor as my folks in their independent living residence -- and lived until about 105, Adeline Cohen.
 
So, I like both candidates.  But I love this ad.

We watch the Olympics all day so you don’t have to.

​And there still was a full day of events, the last one.  There are events on Sunday, but only a few, most notably the men’s Gold Medal hockey game between the U.S. and Canada.  But for now there were a few interesting results.
 
In the second heat of the men’s Short Track 1,500m race, where they top two finishers advance, two of the racers crashed, and then another went down going around a turn.  The two leaders were far enough ahead with just two laps to go that the announcer commented that all they had to do was coast in to qualify for the finals.  But on the last turn…the leader slipped and crashed!  The best that the announcers could figure that they was a problem with the ice, since most of those who went down were doing so around the same turn.
 
In speedskating, one of the top Americans, Corinne Stoddard, ranked #2 in the world, had had a deeply unfortunate Olympics, crashing in all four of her races.  And was so distraught that she posted a very moving apology on social media – which got an outpouring of support.  And in her last event, the 1,500m race, she skated wonderfully and got a Bronze Medal.
 
The Mass Start speedskating race is 16 laps, and 6,400k.  It has odd rules:  for the heats to determine who qualifies for the finals, they go by both the finishing results, but points for where people finish at certain points.  The finals are determined solely by the finish – and are helped when racers have a teammate from their country competing, so they can plan strategy together.  In the men’s race, where American Jordan Stolz was a favorite, but had not teammate to help, two skaters got so far ahead early that no one wanted to challenged them, assuming they’d return to the pack, but they never did.  And though Stolz wanted to pick of the pace of the others, he knew that leading this “peloton” group is a problem, since you have no one to draft off of, and those behind you will be able to more easily pass you at the end.  Ultimately, Dutch skater Jorrit Bergsman won, and Stolz just missed a medal finishing fourth.
 
In the women’s Mass Start, 36-year-old U.S. skater Mia Manganello was in the final race of her career, and – with some strategy help by her teammate Greta Meyers, finished third, getting the Bronze Medal.
 
For the Mixed Team Aerial (the aerial basically being the skiing equivalent to high diving in the Summer Olympics), the U.S. team were defending champions, though two of the members of that team had retired.  It came down to the final jump, by the remaining member of that 2022 team, Christopher Lillis, and he nailed it.  So, the Americans defended their title.
 
The Ski Cross is essentially the exact same as the Snowboard Cross.  The difference is that the former is on skis, the latter using a snowboard.  Yes, they’re different, but not all that much.  This is one of the few “extreme sports” I sort of like, though – racing down a winding course with a couple of jumps thrown in.  The snowboard discipline is more exciting because you never know how many of the competitors will crash.  The skiing version, with more stability, and is a more interesting race.  Daniela Meyers of Germany won.
 
That brings us to the 50m cross country ski, about 30 miles which takes about two hours.  How dominant were the Norwegians here (and in cross country)?  Not only were they in the top three places, the next closest, in fourth place, was two minutes behind.  Near the very end, the two leaders were just seconds apart, until – of course – Johannes Klaebo pulled away, and won his sixth Gold Medal of the Games, the most ever by anyone in Winter Olympics history, topping the five by U.S. speedskater Eric Heiden.
 
And then, there was the bobsled.
 
The Olympics have already had the single bobsled and two-person bobsled events, which I like, but finally, on the final full day of competition, they had the four-person bobsled.  My favorite.  I’ve been waiting and waiting.  They saved the best for (literally) last.
 
As I noted, there are two Olympic sports I love because if I got a call one day that said, “Bob, we lost one of the people on our team, can you fly to the Olympics today to help us out,” I could do it and accomplish my dream of being an Olympic athlete.  One of those is curling – yes, I’d be terrible, and we’d finish an embarrassing last.  But I can walk on ice and sweep.  And the other is the four-person bobsled. (And no, it has nothing to do with its wonderful and appropriate name.  That just makes it better, a cherry on the top).  Yes, I could do the two-person, but I like the four-person the most because twice as many people are involved, jumping hurriedly over the side, which makes it more fun to watch, more of a madhouse, and also adds more stability to the sled – very helpful for my involvement.  And if I got that last-second call, I could be the brakeman – I can help the other three push the sled from behind for 10 yards, step through the rear opening, and then sit down.  Again, we’d be terrible, really slow, but I could do it.  And with three others pushing, we’d lose less time than if it was just me and the pilot.  But I could do it, if I got the call.
 
And yes, I know it’s terrifying (and no, I don’t like rollercoasters), and there’s risk, but as long as you’re crouching down and protected with a helmet and by the bobsled itself, and have your eyes shut closed, along with three other teammates for security in numbers, it’s a hellish ride that’s over in about 50 seconds.  And I’d be an Olympic athlete!
 
How terrifying? SNL’s Colin Jost did a wonderful piece about the bobsled for the NBC broadcast earlier in the week. It looks pretty terrifying. Which Jost is pretty clear about -

You may have read that the CBS determined that Stephen Colbert could not air an interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico – who is running for the U.S. Senate – so the interview was blocked.
 
The issue has to do with the FCC's Equal Time rule, that if a station had an interview with a political candidate during an election, any opposition candidates were entitled to the same amount of time.  For many years, political interviews on late night talk shows were permitted because those programs got an exemption.  That very recently changed under a running by Trump’s FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
 
Side Note: This is a topic that has long interested me.  Years back (with an emphasis on the "years" part) when I was at the beloved Northwestern, I did an Independent Study in the Medill School of Journalism for a new professor there, Sig Mickelson, who was working on a project about the Equal Time rule and the Fairness Doctrine.  So, I was assigned to do a paper on the subject.  Mickelson, by the way, had been president of CBS News, overlapping with the time when Edward R. Murrow was there.  So, I was additionally thrilled about it all.  I'd been very interested in Murrow and did briefly ask Mickelson about him.  The short version is that he greatly admired Murrow, but working with Murrow, who was often pushing the envelope and challenging the network, made his job difficult at times.  But I digress.
 
Though Colbert didn’t air his intended interview with Talarico, he did talk about it at length, despite CBS telling him not to.  He’s blunt about it and also very funny.  I suspect his perspective was also colored by, "What are they going to do?  Fire me?"  By the way, after putting up a photo of James Talarico even though the network had told Colbert that he couldn’t even do that, much later in the segment Colbert finally let the audience know that it was not a picture of Talarico.  (Though it’s close…)
 
Here is that segment.
​

And here is the interview itself.  Colbert and Talarico did it after his regular show, and the studio audience stayed around.  It was then posted on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert's YouTube page, which is not covered by the FCC.
​

We watch the Olympics all day so you don’t have to.

I’ve been spending a bit of time with the Alpine skiing events lately, and one reason is because NBC has added a couple of wonderful features to its coverage.  The first I've mentioned, and that's its use of drones, for great overhead perspective as the skiers blast down the mountain.  It adds a great depth to the race.  But also, what I noticed today is that they now have a graphic on the right side of the TV screen that not only shows the map of the course and the moving position of the racer, but also shows how far ahead or behind first place the skier is at the various checkpoints of the run.
 
I enjoyed the Men’s downhill/slalom race – that’s a competition with two members of a race, one of whom skis the downhill, and the other skis the slalom.  There was a funny moment when the Czechia downhill skier, Jan Zabystran, one of the best in the world, did his specialty for downhill portion.  The announcer noted that Czechia might be favored in the competition if Zabystran had been allowed by the rules to ski both parts, because the other Czechian skier doing the slalom run was only rated #475, to which the announcer said sardonically, “And I think Zabystran can beat that.”
 
Yes, I actually watch curling.  Hey, it’s the Olympics!  And no, I don’t generally watch it at length, but I do watch for a bit.  Part of this comes from the odd reality that when I grew up, curling was actually popular in Chicago, so much so that it was even broadcast on TV.  It's also big in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  So, it’s something I’ve always been aware of as a “sport.”  (My dad, who grew up in Chicago for far longer than me, of course, always said that the reason that curling exists is that so guys can sit around and drink beer.)  And in part the reason I watch curling is that it’s one of the two Winter Olympic Sports where, if I got a phone call, “Bob, we lost a member of our curling team, we need someone to help today!”, I would feel comfortable being able to rush in and participate.  We’d be terrible and finish last, but I knew I could do it.  I can walk on the ice and sweep it.   (The other sport is the bobsled – and not because of the name, that’s just icing on the cake.  More on why when the bobsled competition starts.)
 
I mention this because the U.S. mixed curling team, Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse (known as the "Corys" ) from Duluth, Minnesota, which I believe is the curling capital of the U.S., had an upset and defeated the defending Olympic champion team and current world champions from Italy.  They next play for the Gold Medal.  But they’re guaranteed a Silver.

But there's a part of their story that thrilled me.  In listening to an interview with them after winning their match, it got mentioned that they first met to discuss teaming for curling at the Pickwick.  "Well, hunh," I thought -- and no, it had nothing to do with the musical Pickwick and Harry Secombe -- "I've eaten at a restaurant named the Pickwick."  But of course I'm sure that there are many restaurants named that in the U.S.  It was a place that I'd occasionally go on a day off when I was a counselor at the oft-mentioned Camp Nebagamon.  And we'd want to drive to the Big City, about 20-30 minutes away.  The city closest was Superior, Wisconsin, but there wasn't much of note there, though its sister city was the Big City across the bridge over a nook of Lake Superior that took you into Duluth.  And we would...hey, hold on, wait, a minute -- Duluth!  The two curlers are from Duluth!!  Oh, my god.  I am 100% sure it's the same Pickwick restaurant, it was very popular. It wasn't fine dining -- very Midwestern, a dark interior, heavy furniture, solid food (in a video they say that their best-selling item is deep-fried hamburger with pepper cheese) -- but it was a comfort place, traditional -- "Let's go to the Pickwick."  It opened in 1914 (really!), and is still around.  In fact, to my amazement, it actually got a James Beard Foundation Award in 2007 in the American Classic category (that's a category for longevity of outstanding food and service for at least 45 years.  The food, as a I recall, was classic and done well, but I have to believe "longevity" is core to its award.  But still, the food had to be good.  So, that's great.)  Well, o joy.  Okay, then, all the more reason to say, big congratulations.  And go Team USA Curling! (And what the heck, go Pickwick and Charles Dickens and Harry Secombe.)

 
The last couple of days, I wrote two articles about the Oscars.  There turned out to be a major uproar, an outrage, in fact, that I had devoted two articles back-to-back on something so frivolous.  They were saying that they put so much time in coming to the website and reading what I’ve written that this was such a disappointment and waste.  They come to the site to read the semi-thoughtful, occasionally insightful articles in the morning on politics – and check the site out in the evening, in case I’ve written another one, but put up with the light-hearted pieces on sports or the beloved Northwestern or Harry Secombe or relentless stories about Chicago or my summer camp or trains (including having to explain to the inveterate Chris Dunn every year on National Train Day why Bridge on the River Kwai is a train movie) or the Chicago Cubs or musicals...as long as they’re already here.  But two articles in a row on “the Oscars”???!  It was just too much for so many people.  And so, a growing, paid swarm of readers banded together and demanded an investigation as to why they believe I did such a thoughtless, irresponsible act.
 
The calls were for an independent ombudsman from outside the Weebly online service that runs this website to conduct the investigation.  However, as the official authority of my own site, I have refused requests to give them my personal notes on story ideas and blocked efforts to gain access to the private documents and files. These two stories had nothing to do with Weebly, and so I have determined that their participation or any other outside source would be inappropriate.  But I understand that an investigation is necessary.  And so, because no one knows about the writing of articles here better than I do, I said that I would conduct the investigation myself.  To qualm any concerns, I explained that I insisted it would be thorough, detailed and honest.
 
That investigation is now completed.  And in full transparency, here is the report –