Alaskans Spend The Most (Per Capita) On Alcohol, Utah (Surprise) The Least

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/10/2026 – 07:35

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/alaskans-spend-most-capita-alcohol-utah-surprise-least 

It came across as more prideful than wistful when Jayden Daniels, speaking Monday on locker-room cleanout day for the Washington Commanders, declared, “We’ve got a badass class of quarterbacks.”

It was a nod to Caleb Williams, who led the Chicago Bears to the No. 2 seed in the NFC; Bo Nix, who quarterbacks the AFC’s top-seeded Denver Broncos; and Drake Maye, who’s expected to finish first or second in MVP balloting after helping the New England Patriots capture the AFC’s No. 2 seed.

Related Articles

Daniels got his first taste of playoff football — the thing that can define a quarterback’s legacy — last season, when he was the runaway Offensive Rookie of the Year and carried the sixth-seeded Commanders all the way to the NFC championship game. A series of injuries ruined his 2025 season, and Washington crumbled.

The 2024 quarterback class is well-represented this postseason with No. 1 pick Williams, No. 3 pick Maye and No. 12 pick Nix (Daniels was picked at No. 2). Interestingly, the Bears could have had their choice of five of the quarterbacks in this year’s playoff field from the last three drafts.

They held the No. 1 pick in 2023 before trading it, passing on the chance to choose Bryce Young (taken No. 1 by the Carolina Panthers) or C.J. Stroud (No. 2, Houston Texans). They made Williams their man in 2024, beginning a draft that produced six QBs in the top 12, including Michael Penix Jr. (No. 8, Atlanta Falcons) and J.J. McCarthy (No. 10, Minnesota Vikings).

The stage is larger, the lights are brighter and pressure is ratcheted up in the postseason as Williams prepares for his first playoff game Saturday night at Soldier Field against the Green Bay Packers. It’s a great addition to the rich and colorful rivalry, but the stakes are higher and a chance to pursue a Super Bowl far transcends bragging rights in the upper Midwest.

“He was built for these moments,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said of Williams. “He plays his best when we need him to, and so there’s really not a whole lot that needs to be said. He just needs to be him.”

One cylindrical case at Halas Hall holds the franchise’s only Lombardi Trophy, usually located in the lobby of team headquarters. Members of that Super Bowl XX team will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their accomplishment later this month. With the Bears’ origin interwoven into the early fabric of the NFL, it’s dismaying a more elaborate display isn’t required.

This is the precise situation the Bears plotted to reach when they selected Williams with the No. 1 pick they got back from the Panthers in the 2023 trade for that year’s top pick, the kind of amazing return and fortune that seemingly eluded the franchise for decades.

“It’s the start of it,” Williams said. “Part of it was me getting here, coming here and having that mindset throughout. And then getting to this point, being able to go to the playoffs in my second year, Coach’s first year, and to continue that mindset. That energy here in Chicago is important. It’s where we’re at, and it starts this weekend.”

This moment is what Johnson and his staff were laying the foundation for back in the spring, over the hot days of training camp, into the season and after the team stumbled to an 0-2 start. Williams was pushed hard from the start, challenged to grow and adapt to lift the offense to new heights and not just keep him in college spread concepts he was most comfortable operating.

A worst-to-first turnaround wasn’t a goal as much as a checkpoint on the way to what really matters: reaching the tournament and having a chance to challenge for a championship. Perhaps the Bears arrived sooner than many expected, but that doesn’t minimize in any manner the significance of the opportunity ahead of them.

Johnson can say Williams is ready for this spotlight after the quarterback led sixth fourth-quarter comebacks this season. He has been at his best when the game is on the line in gotta-have-it moments — like the fourth-down pass he floated to Jahdae Walker in the face of an all-out blitz from the Packers in Week 16.

Bears quarterback Caleb Williams celebrates after an overtime victory over the Packers on Dec. 20, 2025, at Soldier Field. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

That makes the belief in the locker room real, not the obligatory “he’s our guy” chatter you normally got when asking about Bears quarterbacks over the years.

“That’s just something that he’s had and he’s kind of just been born with,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “I don’t know if that’s something he’s had since he’s been playing football and playing sports in general, but I felt that last year too. And I know results weren’t great last year, but there were countless times where he drove us down the field at the end of the game to either put us in position to win, tie or go ahead. But this year, obviously, that gets highlighted more just because of the winning record.

“He’s got great poise out there and he remains the same. And he understands, especially this year, when he has to go make a play when it’s needed. And we’ve seen that come up time and time again.”

The offense has a rare combination of being the most secure in the NFL — the Bears committed a league-low 11 turnovers — and ranking second with 127 explosive plays (pass plays of 20 or more yards and runs of 10-plus yards). The Bears aren’t eschewing the chance for plays that flip the field in the name of ball security. Johnson is pushing the gas pedal with confidence in his quarterback.

Williams’ 1.2% career interception percentage is the lowest of any quarterback in NFL history with a minimum of 1,000 attempts. His passer rating on third down when trailing is 132.1, and his growing comfort in the scheme has been evident in the second half of the season as he balances plays in which he can buy time to find a target downfield or run and as he has incorporated the tight ends more in the passing attack.

But as Williams, 24, readies for the biggest game of his life — a life already packed with grand moments — he’s not attaching anything larger to it.

“I treat them all the same,” he said. “All the big games are the same to me. Doesn’t matter if it was high school for me, whether it was college … whether it was a game that’s going to get us into the playoffs. The mindset of it just changes a little bit because, you know, you don’t have another game (guaranteed) if you go out there and you don’t accomplish the goal.”

The overarching goal — the GOAL — Williams laid out for himself as he prepared for his professional career coming out of USC is immense: to become the first quarterback you speak of when talking about postseason greatness.

“I want to play at one place for 20 years and chase one guy, No. 12,” Williams said on “The Pivot” podcast with Ryan Clark.

Chasing No. 12 means pursuing the seven Super Bowl rings Tom Brady won during a storybook 23-year career in New England and Tampa Bay.

“I love it,” Bears general manager Ryan Poles said of Williams’ quest the day before Poles drafted the quarterback. “We all should have huge goals. We have huge goals here — win multiple championships. And that’s what we shoot for.”

That would require a full-blown remodel of the Halas Hall lobby, not just a larger display case.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/10/chicago-bears-caleb-williams-playoffs/ 

The No. 2 seed Chicago Bears (11-6) will play the No. 7 seed Green Bay Packers (9-7-1) at Soldier Field in a wild-card playoff game. Here’s what you need to know before kickoff (7 p.m., Prime Video and Fox-32).

Want the latest Bears news? Subscribe to the Chicago Tribune to read it all — and sign up for our free Bears Insider newsletter.

5 things to watch for — plus our playoff predictions

Bears wide receiver DJ Moore finds a hole in the Packers defense in the first quarter at Soldier Field on Dec. 20, 2025. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

The rivalry doesn’t get much more real than Saturday’s wild-card game. The NFC North foes will meet for the 213th time, including the postseason, the only series in NFL history to exceed 200 games.

Yet the Bears and Packers have faced off only twice in the playoffs, with the Bears losing the most recent meeting 21-14 in the NFC championship game on Jan. 23, 2011. The other playoff meeting came so long ago it was played at Wrigley Field. The Bears won 33-14 on Dec. 14, 1941.

“I was kind of surprised to see how few times that’s happened in the postseason, so it’s pretty cool,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said Thursday.

The Bears have won two of the last three regular-season meetings — but that’s after 11 straight losses in the series. Read more here.

Rome Odunze is ‘planning on playing’ in Bears playoff game after missing the last 5 games
Column: Will Tyrique Stevenson get shot to help leaky Bears secondary? ‘There’ll be a plan in place.’

Caleb Williams is ready to meet the moment

Bears quarterback Caleb Williams takes the field to face the Browns on Dec. 14, 2025, at Soldier Field. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

The stage is larger, the lights are brighter and pressure is ratcheted up in the postseason as Caleb Williams prepares for his first playoff game. It’s a great addition to the rich and colorful rivalry, but the stakes are higher and a chance to pursue a Super Bowl far transcends bragging rights in the upper Midwest.

“He was built for these moments,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said of Williams. “He plays his best when we need him to, and so there’s really not a whole lot that needs to be said. He just needs to be him.” Read more here.

Column: Ben Johnson is crafting a plan to clean up errors — and get Bears back on track for playoffs
Packers QB Jordan Love believes he has learned from previous playoff disappointments

Short on postseason experience, Bears need these key players to deliver

Bears safety Kevin Byard III celebrates a 31-28 win over the Steelers at Soldier Field on Nov. 23, 2025, in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

This moment is why a team brings in a veteran such as safety Kevin Byard III.

It’s why general manager Ryan Poles traded for guard Joe Thuney, who has 21 playoff games under his belt (tied for sixth-most among active players). It’s why Poles signed guys such as linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards and doled out some of the franchise’s biggest contracts to veterans such as receiver DJ Moore, defensive end Montez Sweat and cornerback Jaylon Johnson. Read more here.

6 Bears players who could emerge as unsung heroes if they make a playoff run
‘She’s been at every game’: Bears’ Jonathan Owens celebrating ‘special’ season with wife Simone Biles
Will Cole Kmet’s sister — who dates a Packer — root for the Bears? ‘I’ll find out after.’

Bears preparing for intense atmosphere — on the field and in the stands

A fan dressed as the Grinch is seen behind a Green Bay Packers “cheese head” fan during a game between the Chicago Bears and the Packers at Soldier Field in Chicago on Dec. 20, 2025. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

The Bears last made the postseason in 2020, led by coach Matt Nagy and quarterback Mitch Trubisky. They lost 21-9 to the Saints on Jan 10, 2021, in New Orleans. They last hosted a playoff game on Jan. 6, 2019, a 16-15 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles — the infamous “Double Doink” game.

Bears players witnessed raucous crowds as visitors to hostile Lambeau Field in Week 14, when they lost 28-21 to the Packers, and again on their home turf in Week 16, when Soldier Field erupted after Williams connected with DJ Moore on a 46-yard touchdown pass in overtime for a 22-16 victory.

So a third game against the hated Packers at Soldier Field? Could it get any rowdier?

“I wouldn’t expect nothing less,” Byard said. Read more here.

Week 14 recap: Caleb Williams’ 4th-down INT seals Bears loss to Packers
Week 16 recap: Bears erase 10-point deficit in 4th quarter to stun Packers 22-16 in OT
Bears and Packers have played 212 times in the past 100 years: How the rivalry has unfolded

How to watch tonight’s playoff game

Bears fans Tony Hurtte, center, and Charlie McGuire tailgate before the game against the Packers on Dec. 20, 2025, at Soldier Field. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

Amazon gained exclusive rights to broadcast “Thursday Night Football” on its Prime Video streaming service starting in 2022. Prime Video also has rights to the annual Black Friday game on the day after Thanksgiving.

Beginning last season, Prime Video gained exclusive rights to one wild-card round playoff game per year. That deal reportedly will last through the 2032 season. Read more here.

Fan fever builds in Chicago ahead of Bears’ playoff game, from food delivery to foam cheese grater hats
Ben Johnson says keeping a routine — workout? movie? — is key for Bears to combat playoff pressure

NFL coaching and GM tracker

Bears assistant general manager Ian Cunningham, left, and general manager Ryan Poles walk the field before a game on Oct. 26, 2025. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

The NFL head coach and general manager hiring cycles went into full force this week. Candidates will interview over the next month. With their success under first-year coach Ben Johnson, the Bears are happy to be talking about the playoffs rather than the hiring cycle.

But the hires that happen in the coming weeks still could affect the Bears. NFL teams love to hire head coaches and coordinators from successful teams, and at 11-6 the NFC North champion Bears would qualify.

If a team wanted to interview a candidate on Johnson’s staff for its head coach opening, an initial virtual interview cannot happen until Jan. 13. Teams generally won’t begin interviewing candidates for coordinator positions until after they’ve hired a head coach.

Here’s the latest NFL hiring news that could be of interest to Bears fans. Read more here.

Ex-Bears coach Matt Eberflus fired by Cowboys after 1 season as their defensive coordinator
John Harbaugh fired as Ravens coach after 18 seasons, including a Super Bowl win
What are the NFL’s rules about timing and interviews for coaching searches during the playoffs?

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/10/chicago-bears-vs-green-bay-packers-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-wild-card-playoff-game-before-kickoff/ 

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The good news: Tickets are available for the Indiana-Miami matchup in the College Football Playoff national championship game.

The bad news: They’ll cost you. A lot. A whole lot.

In the moments after Indiana finished rolling past Oregon on Friday to win the Peach Bowl 56-22, clinching a spot in the CFP title game on Jan. 19 against Miami — on the Hurricanes’ home field, no less — ticket prices for the matchup soared.

The cheapest tickets available entering Friday on the secondary markets were around $2,800. After Friday’s game, those in-the-door prices soared to around $3,800 — and that was for seats in the final rows of the upper deck of Hard Rock Stadium.

Some seats available on sites like StubHub, TickPick and Ticketmaster were offered for more than $10,000 late Friday. Numbers like those will fluctuate considerably in the coming days, but it’s already clear that this matchup will be a pricey one. It’s a perfect formula for wild demand: Miami playing a home game and seeking its sixth national title (albeit technically as the “visiting” team) against an Indiana team on this stage for the first time.

“To see Miami galvanizing like it is right now, it’s awesome,” Hurricanes coach Mario Cristobal said Friday after he and his team arrived home from Thursday night’s win in the Fiesta Bowl over Mississippi. “And we need everybody in that stadium going absolutely bananas.”

Miami sold more than 500,000 tickets this season for its eight home regular-season games, the most in program history. And Indiana fans showed once again in the Peach Bowl that they’ll travel to support their Hoosiers; the stadium in Atlanta was overwhelmingly crimson, swallowing up whatever Oregon green was in the crowd.

“There’s nothing like having a home semifinal game,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said in the on-field celebration Friday night. “There are no fans like Indiana Hoosier fans.”

Not everyone at the game will have to pay the big, big, big prices. Indiana and Miami both receive an allotment of tickets that they can sell — at face value — to season ticket holders, donors, students and others.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/10/ticket-prices-soar-for-indiana-miami-college-football-playoff-national-championship-game/ 

Russia On Paris Ukraine Summit: Western ‘Peacekeeping’ Troops Would Be “Legitimate Combat Targets”

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/10/2026 – 07:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-reacts-paris-ukraine-summit-western-peacekeeping-troops-would-be-legitimate 

We made it to the weekend, quotes readers! This week was chock-full of news, so let’s get into it.

Early Saturday, the United States conducted military strikes in Venezuela and deposed President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple now faces federal drug trafficking charges in the U.S. and had their first court hearing on Monday in New York City. The White House is also pressuring Venezuela’s acting president to open the nation up to American energy companies and says it intends to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products worldwide. Moreover, President Donald Trump reignited tensions with Denmark this week, again calling for a U.S. “takeover” of Greenland, the Arctic island and self-governing territory of Denmark.

Stateside, the nation is reeling from the death of Renee Good, the 37-year-old Minneapolis woman who was shot and killed in her car by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday. Many Americans are debating whether the shooting was justified after videos taken by bystanders and cellphone footage from the officer were released, leading to protests around the country.

In the wake of the Minnesota shooting, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot launched the ICE Accountability Project to track immigration agents’ alleged criminal or abusive conduct during Operation Midway Blitz. Federal agents have been involved in several shootings since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began, including two in Chicago and another just this week in Portland, Oregon.

In Washington, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was freezing $10 billion in funding for child care programs in five Democrat-led states, including Illinois. The states responded Thursday by filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court, and by Friday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the government from freezing the funds for now. Meanwhile, several House Republicans joined with Democrats to pass legislation that would extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expired at the end of last year.

Also this week, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a sweeping energy bill that aims to reduce electricity prices amid rising utility costs. But while some Illinoisans could soon see lower monthly bills, others might not be so lucky. On Friday, Nicor Gas filed a $221 million rate increase request for its suburban Chicago customers. If approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission, the average resident’s delivery charges would go up by about $6 per month as early as next year.

In news from City Hall, aldermen advanced an ordinance that would allow Chicago’s police superintendent to enact a teen curfew anytime, anywhere, Mayor Brandon Johnson raised the possibility of layoffs for city workers, and Chicago’s chief financial officer announced she’s leaving the mayor’s administration for another job.

With the regular season over, the Bears are preparing for their first playoff game in five years. The team will take on their division foes, the Green Bay Packers, Saturday night at Soldier Field. Will Caleb Williams and first-year coach Ben Johnson pull off another win over their longtime rivals? Here’s everything to know before kickoff, including who’s playing, how to watch and our Bears reporters’ game day predictions.

Now for the fun stuff! Take the Tribune’s Quotes of the Week quiz for the week of Jan. 4 to 10. Missed last week? You can find it here or check out our past editions of Quotes of the Week.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/10/quotes-quiz-january-10/ 

Every so often, an author in translation with a hit novel series in their home country or region arrives to the U.S. and becomes a fresh phenomenon in the States.

Recent examples include Elena Ferrante with her quartet of Neapolitan novels tracing the decades of friendship between Lenu and Lila, and Karl Ove Knausgaard’s six-volume “My Struggle” series, in which the Norwegian master indeed struggles in great detail and depth with existential questions of death, love and what we owe to others and the world.

The next contender for this status has arrived from Denmark. Her name is Solvej Balle, and the book is “On the Calculation of Volume.”

Whenever I tell someone about the premise of “On the Calculation of Volume” — a woman named Tara Selter, who co-owns an antiquarian bookseller with her husband Thomas, finds herself repeating the same day (Nov. 18) over and over — the immediate response is “Oh, like ‘Groundhog Day.’”

Yes, but also, very much no.

“On the Calculation of Volume” opens on Tara’s 121st instance of Nov. 18. She is sharing the house she lives in with Thomas, but is ensconced in a guest room, listening for the sounds of his morning routine that have become so familiar: the click of the gas stovetop igniting, the rustle of tea leaves in paper. Thomas thinks Tara is away on an overnight trip to secure special books for some clients, so she cannot reveal herself to him.

Unlike “Groundhog Day,” where Bill Murray’s character is resurrected in the same place every morning, no matter the events of the previous day, Tara can move through the world, waking up in the same place she laid her head, alongside whatever objects she’s kept near her.

The dilemma is immediate and rich. Tara takes us back to her first inklings of something gone wrong, seeing a piece of bread fall to the floor in the same way at the hotel breakfast multiple days in a row, and the friends with whom she shared a drink having no memory of the events, or a burn she acquired on her hand, a wound that remains, even as the day repeats for the rest of the world.

For many of the previous 120 days, Tara tells Thomas what is happening to her, and convinces him of her situation through her apparent clairvoyance. They puzzle over the dilemma, try staying up all night together, remaining in each other’s arms, and yet Thomas cannot hold on to the story, waking up surprised to see his wife, who is supposed to be away.

As the novel opens, Tara has decided that she cannot bear to deliver fresh distress to her husband over and over and has been hiding, moving only when she will not be detected.

The conceit creates a compelling combination of story suspense and a sense of suspension, as Tara cannot break free from this day. My mind whirled, wondering what I would do in her shoes, while also being ensorcelled by Balle’s close parsing of the moment-to-moment experience of living.

“On the Calculation of Human Volume” is seven books long, the first three currently available in English through the wonderful publisher, New Directions. If you are like me, you will find it impossible not to want to read Vol. 2 (and then Vol. 3) after completing the first, but I also recommend taking a bit of time between books.

One of the pleasures of life is our capacity to slow down, to notice, and as compelling as this story is, we should resist taking great gulps.

John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at biblioracle.com.

Book recommendations from the Biblioracle

John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.

1. “Glory Days” by Simon Rich
2. “Black Sun” by Rebecca Roanhorse
3. “Good Material” by Dolly Alderton
4. “Jade Legacy” by Fonda Lee
5. “107 Days” by Kamala Harris

— Mike G., Springfield

I want to give Mike something with a humorous vein, which brings to mind “Big Swiss” by Jen Beagin.

1. “Red Rabbit” by Alex Grecian
2. “By the Fire We Carry” by Rebecca Nagle
3. “King of Ashes” by S.A. Cosby
4. “Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America” by Elie Mystal
5. “Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska” by Warren Zanes

— Dave C., Lombard

I’m hoping that J. Robert Lennon’s “Hard Girls” introduces Dave to a noir/thriller series that he will read with pleasure beyond that first installment.

1. “The Book Club for Troublesome Women” by Marie Bostwick
2. “The Lost Passenger” by Frances Quinn
3. “The Elephant Whisperer” by Lawrence Anthony
4. “The Elements” by John Boyne
5. “Oil and Marble” by Stephanie Storey

— Jenny G., Lake Bluff

For Jenny, a nice, juicy historical novel, one of my favorites of recent years, “Mercury Pictures Presents” by Anthony Marra.

Get a reading from the Biblioracle

Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/10/biblioracle-solvej-balle/ 

Regarding the op-ed “Ray Rayner was a lasting gift to Chicago’s children” by Michael Peregrine (Jan. 3): Through all the years and all the morning programs, “Ray Rayner and His Friends” was by far the best morning show. Maybe the fact I was an elementary school child in the late 1960s and watched the show before walking to school with friends biases my thoughts in this regard, but Rayner brought something to me that no other morning show did — joy. Whether it was Rayner reporting on sports by clumsily writing the previous day’s scores on a chalkboard (including Slippery Rock) or performing terribly on some craft project, he always did so with a laugh and happiness that was infectious.

I learned from Rayner that maybe my sports team wouldn’t win that day or that my school art project wouldn’t be what I had imagined, but regardless, we all could still enjoy life with the right, joyful attitude.

— Keith Duncan, Upland, Indiana

Quite a career day

In 1957, Ray Rayner’s daughter Christine was in my kindergarten class at Oaklane School in Northbrook. The teacher hosted career days during which fathers came to tell us about their jobs. Mr. Berkebile was an airline pilot. Mr. Breitkopf’s company made packaging for candy (and brought a lot of boxes that we all had fun putting together). My dad was a railroader (I still recall the diesel locomotive that he drew as he talked). But, wow! Mr. Rayner was someone we all knew right away. His presentation was the most entertaining of all.

Thanks to Michael Peregrine for sparking the memory — and, yes, you can tell someone grew up in Chicago when they pat their shirt fronts for a little note.

— Nann Blaine HIlyard, Winthrop Harbor

Chicago’s priorities

On my daily dog walks through Lincoln Park, poop bag in hand, I often find myself dipping into the alleys behind multimillion-dollar homes to make a “deposit.” Behind the meticulously maintained garages sit rows of city-issued garbage and recycling carts — four, five, sometimes six bins per household. Regardless of the number, each homeowner pays a flat $9.50 a month for trash removal. It’s a revealing place to think about Chicago’s priorities.

In my six-unit condo building, we pay many times that amount to a private hauler for the same service.

I don’t claim to understand much about Chicago’s new budget, from video gaming revenue to restructured liquor taxes. But I do understand inequity when I step in it. Chicago’s system funnels more than $250 million a year into subsidized garbage pickup for single-family homes — while multiunit buildings foot the full bill themselves.

It’s a policy that stinks more than anything my dog leaves behind.

— John Mjoseth, Chicago

‘Textbook for life’

Many years ago, I attended a workshop for teachers at Tribune Tower on a Saturday. We learned a phrase that I have never forgotten: “The newspaper is your textbook for life.”

I began stopping on my way to my classroom each Friday morning to buy a dozen newspapers, one for each student in my classroom; all of them had behavioral challenges. I would write out a worksheet, similar to a scavenger hunt, asking students to find answers to questions that would require them to scan several pages of the paper.

The room fell silent as each student studied all the sections of the paper, sometimes becoming absorbed in articles that were not related to my questions on the worksheet. It was not important to me that the worksheet was completed accurately — only that they spent time learning to read a daily newspaper. And some very interesting discussions followed based on things they had learned.

Today, I’m a retired teacher, but I still begin every day with my “textbook for life.”

— Ellen M. Peirce, Chicago

Stop-start on cars

I’m giving David McGrath a split decision on his list of innovations he wants back (“The innovations I’d like to see deep-sixed in 2026,” Jan. 1).

He’s absolutely right about restaurants that are too loud for conversation. Throughout history, meals have been communal events fostering fellowship — and not about a group of people eating together without being able to commune.

But, as far as the auto stop-start feature on cars, he’s wrong. Yes, it’s an annoyance. But there aren’t going to be many absolutely pain-free ways to fight climate change.

If we are unwilling to pay even this small price, just how is this going to work out?

— Mike Koetting, Chicago

Noisy restaurants

What a gift it is to read David McGrath’s op-eds. A writer, who with the skills of a gifted neurosurgeon, manages to reach into my ever-softening hard drive of a brain and extract my exact feeling of frustration trying to carry on conversations with my friends at a restaurant table. While at the same time listening to a conversation from Table 14 across the room about how there never seems to be anyone working at certain big-box stores to help find what they need.

It truly is a loud, loud world out there — at least to us oldies.

Well said, David. Well said.

— Reg Green, Manteno, Illinois

Bad NYE telecast

ABC absolutely failed in its coverage of the New Year’s Eve celebration for Chicago! With all the hype about the national coverage with New York, I thought there would be more time spent in Chicago. New York switched to Chicago just before midnight, and Chance the Rapper did one song and did the countdown to midnight. ABC showed the fireworks and then switched to Las Vegas.

In years past, the local channel did a much better job.

— Daniel Cook, Woodridge

Underwhelming party

It was great Chicago was featured on ABC on New Year’s Eve, but there was nothing there in the way of entertainment for hours!

Chance the Rapper performed just before midnight, and the fireworks were (as always) spectacular, but for the prior three hours, the network cuts to Chicago were completely embarrassing.

I counted at least eight on-camera appearances by Chance during which he had zero to add. And of course Mayor Brandon Johnson trying to whoop it up, but there was no there there.  A shameful showing for the Second City.

The blame is squarely on Johnson for the failure.

— Jay Seifried, Chicago

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/10/letters-011026-ray-rayner/