Mercy me, it’s Thursday already? That it is, and I completely missed on the midweek blog. Sorry about that.

However, others have been gathering string on my behalf. On someone’s behalf, anyway. While I strive to find the top of my desk under a shifting stack of work, please enjoy:

Eric Zorn, a Chicagoan, justly praises Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stirring call to action, delivered in New Hampshire on Sunday. You probably saw piece of it here and there, and if you didn’t, rest assured: It was a good’un:

Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.

They must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history with our democracy intact — because we have no alternative but to do just that — that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors. … I’m telling you what I’m willing to do, and that’s fight for our democracy, for our liberty, for the opportunity for all of our people to live lives that are meaningful and free.

Being in Chicago, he was able to report the Tribune’s, and the Illinois GOP’s, ridiculous reaction:

The Illinois Republican Party rushed to the fainting couch in a news release Monday headlined, “Pritzker Calls For Violence Toward Republicans.”

JB Pritzker’s attempt to woo New Hampshire Democrats as he barrels towards the 2028 Democrat primary was full of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric. Pritzker’s obsession, to insult and to chastise President Trump, showed forcefully as he stoked the crowd in calling for political violence against Republicans.

The Tribune reported:

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, reposted a clip of Pritzker’s speech on social media and asked, “Are you trying to inspire a 3rd assassination attempt on my dad?” And deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller in Washington also criticized the remarks, saying they “could be construed as inciting violence.”

“The destruction of property sits directly adjacent to the — to attacks on humans, physical attacks,” said Miller, who also cited the past assassination attempts on Trump.

Easy there, Grand Old Paranoids. Fighting with “every microphone and megaphone that we have” is call for protests and rhetoric, not a call to take up bear spray, baseball bats and flagpoles, as those who answered the call from Dear Leader did on Jan. 6, 2021.

When you’ve pissed off both Don Jr. and Stephen Miller, you know you’ve hit a nerve. Keep it up, governor.

Eric’s Substack is pretty good, btw. He publishes twice a week, with the Chicago-heavy content going in the Tuesday edition, the paid one. Thursday’s is friendlier to non-Chicagoans.

Bonus Zorn: Exploring the origins of the word “tilt” as a synonym for malfunction, and its roots in pinball, he quotes from “Wired,” Bob Woodward’s book:

In his 1984 book “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi,” author Bob Woodward described the coked-up actor at one point as “like a pinball machine on tilt, out of control.”

The quote made me wince, because it’s such a perfect illustration of what a leaden writer Woodward is. I remember reading “Wired” and thinking, how can a book about a comedian be so unfunny? FWIW, a pinball machine on tilt is not “out of control,” it’s dead. Activating the tilt sensors makes the machine freeze and lets the ball roll out of play. But the book was full of passages like that. Probably the worst was Woodward on the chizborger-chizborger sketch, an SNL classic, which he lays out in such excruciating detail that it isn’t even mildly amusing.

In other news, I recently became aware of a publication called Michigan Enjoyer. Hmm, what’s this, I thought, and clicked on their About page, where I read:

Michigan Enjoyer is Michigan media for those who relish the beauty of life here and are tired of apologizing for it.

Wha-? Huh? As one who enjoys the beauty of life here and has never once apologized for it, or even thought I should, I read on:

An antidote to the boring, biased, and out-of-touch local media, we’re here to breathe vitality back into a state that used to overflow with it. You “problematic” Michiganders too busy building to be depressed and offended—you’re our driving force.

Oh. OK. If you scratch someone upset about the boring, biased and out-of-touch local media, nine times out of 10 you’ll find a right-winger, and whaddaya know, I’m right. Here’s a recent headline:

DTW Is the Democrat Dream

Subhed: It’s an ultra-safe surveillance state full of high-end luxuries, so why do we all hate being there?

What follows is a glimpse into the mind of an editorial team who thinks some people go around apologizing for enjoying the beauty of life in Michigan. While I despise the early-2000s habit of dissecting blogs line-by-line, once known as “fisking,” I must say this column was just one jaw-dropper after another:

Detroit Metropolitan Airport is a leftist utopia. Everything is pre-packaged, arbitrary rules are strictly enforced, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s voice even blares over the loudspeakers.

That’s the lead. First of all, it’s a what? And how does pre-packaged everything make it so? At a time when having the wrong tattoo and a Chicago Bulls cap can get you sent to a concentration camp, is this the time to whine about arbitrary rules from a conservative corner? As for Benson’s voice, he’s objecting to a recording played every so often in recent weeks, reminding travelers that the Real ID deadline is absolutely coming for real this time, and they should be mindful. We heard it when we went to New Orleans. I don’t recall it being all that frequent, or in any way blaring.

I should stop here to confess my prejudice: I like our airport. I don’t like that it’s on the other side of the county, but I can live with that. The entrances and exits make sense, there are plenty of restrooms, moving sidewalks, a tram, lots of food choices and it’s never less than reasonably clean. But most important, it’s a hub. You can fly nonstop from Detroit to Tokyo, for crying out loud. Spend 20 years of your life in someplace like Fort Wayne, and then come back to me with your complaints. In that city, the choice was always to either pay significantly more to book a vacation flight out of there, or save the extra dough by driving to Indianapolis or Chicago, which isn’t so bad when you’re departing, full of we’re-on-vacation high spirits. When you return, tired and road-weary, you now face a 110- or 150-mile drive to your house, and that part sucks.

But it’s the nature of this guy’s complaints that blow my mind:

(Airports) are always regulated by county- or city-port authorities and almost always located within or adjacent deep blue urban hubs. They even have special police forces and federal TSA security apparatchiks enforcing terminal access.

…When faced with overt government regulation, travelers are forced through a slightly humiliating screening process, as frequent flyers pay for quicker security sweeps.

…The McNamara and Evans terminals look less like airports and more like suburban malls. The PGA Tour Shop, Johnston & Murphy, Estee Lauder, Brookstone, and iStore Express. These are global brands for a super-striver consumer. But it’s a command economy with a neoliberal flavor. Travelers are captured and repeatedly price gouged due to a lack of competition.

Welcome to every single airport in the country, except for the smaller ones like Fort Wayne, which probably doesn’t have a Johnston & Murphy, Estée Lauder, etc. The big thing everyone mentions about FWA is this: A crew of greeters offers warm cookies to arrivals. This is nice! I’d love a cookie. It would sustain me on my 150-mile final drive to my destination.

But so many questions have I! The terminals “look less like airports and more like suburban malls?” What should airports look like, because in between those mall stores and restaurants are gates with windowed walls where you can see planes. Would you prefer a three-sided shed, a wind sock and a crew that starts the planes by pulling on the propeller, the pilot in a leather helmet giving a thumbs-up from the cockpit? I prefer the modern version, even if it comes with a neoliberal flavor. And price-gouging? People don’t shop at the airport for bargains — it’s on the other side of security. You shop there because you forgot to pack something, or you’re bored, or you have money to burn. Expect to pay a premium for this.

Then he bitches again about Real ID, claiming “what it really appears to be is a state (and federal) cash grab to force adults over the age of 18 to get brand new state ID cards that are somehow harder to falsify.” Why do we have this law? Because the 9/11 Commission recommended it. It was passed by Congress and signed into law by, anyone? George W. Bush. Full implementation has been delayed now for 20 years. If it were a cash grab, it’s a pretty shitty one. But I’d point out to this writer that it’s no more onerous than the requirements they want to enshrine in the SAVE Act, the one that will require new voters to prove their citizenship to register. 9/11 actually happened. But non-citizens voting is vanishingly rare.

Oh, well. Some people will never be happy. I’ll offer this miserable traveler one pro tip: TSA Pre is the single best $80 I ever spent, even factoring in the hassle of having to be fingerprinted. It’s good for five years, and every time I fly, which isn’t often, I’m glad I did it. But then, I’m a Democrat. And I like having a cocktail before I board, even if it is overpriced.

The last thing I’ll say about Michigan Enjoyer: It’s the latest stop on the downward spiral of Charlie LeDuff’s career. And he’s doing the same thing to them that he did to Deadline Detroit: Cut/paste his column into his own social media, thereby depriving his publisher of the click. What a guy.

OK, it’ll be Friday in 24 hours and I still have work to do. Enjoy the weekend, and let’s hope there’s fewer chores next week.