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Reading state representative Kam Buckner’s op-ed (“Soldier Field shuffle offers opportunity to Chicago, the Bears,” Dec. 10) reminded me of the recent NBC Sports Chicago documentary on the same subject: They were both pretty much clueless.
This is an organization ready to walk away from Soldier Field, the $640 million still owed on the 2003 renovation not their problem. Public bonds, public debt, heads I win, tails you lose.
The only reason the Bears are looking — or say they’re looking — at a site South of Soldier Field is that their act isn’t taking the suburbs by storm. After buying the old Arlington Park racecourse property, the Monsters of the Midway thought everyone would welcome them with open arms, even after they complained about the size of their tax bill and floated the idea of dictating how much they should pay in property taxes to the surrounding school districts.
No “Grabowski” lifestyle for the McCaskeys. Their fans may have to find the money for rent or mortgage payments, budget for that semiannual headache courtesy of the county assessor, but not them. No, the McCaskeys think they should be allowed to drop whatever they deem appropriate into the collection basket. Nice perk, if you can get it. Illinois taxpayers can only hope the General Assembly won’t allow it.
Buckner also worries about the “fan experience” at Soldier Field, as did the NBCdocumentary, which felt like an infomercial for the Rams’ SoFi Stadium. Don’t like parking for Bears’ games? Then read this from the Rams’ website: “Due to high demand and on-site parking being limited, we are sold out of on-site parking for the 2023 season.” Some experience. And just try to find a price on the online dining guide, even for a Sumo dog.
What Buckner and virtually every proponent of a new Bears’ stadium ignore is this damning reality: Every NFL team starts out equal because of a hard salary cap.
In other words, the Bears don’t stink because the Packers and Chiefs outspend them. They stink because the Packers and Chiefs (and pretty much every other team this side of the Panthers) spend their money better. Do you think a new stadium would’ve led then-GM Ryan Pace to draft Patrick Mahomes?
Mahomes plays his home games in an outdoor stadium that dates to 1972. That team to the North plays in an updated Lambeau Field, which first opened in 1957. Soldier Field is not the problem. The organization that rents it 10 games a season is.
— Douglas Bukowski, Berwyn
Soldier Field Shuffle
In his op-ed, Rep. Kam Buckner gave enthusiastic encouragement to the notion of helping the Bears land a new stadium on the lakefront. He offered some vague reasons and ideas for accomplishing this, including the “public-private” partnership concept. This is code for — the people pay to help a private company to make money. Let readers be reminded of the news release that Buckner issued on Jan. 3 of this year. Here is an excerpt. He certainly has changed his tune; he is now a Bears booster. I wonder why?
“The demands the Bears are making boil down to a $6 billion privately held company that doesn’t want to pay taxes.” Profits have ballooned for the Bears, but Chicago taxpayers still owe over $640 million on that Soldier Field renovation even as the team prepares to ask for more public funding to leave Chicago. Giving the Bears another gift-wrapped subsidy should not be on our list of priorities. Are the Bears ready to look taxpayers in the face and say why they deserve funding that could be going toward public safety, education and essential services?”
— Blaise J. Arena, Des Plaines
Spending
If I spent a million dollars on a failed company project, like the mayor just did, I would be fired. Something to think about.
— Donna Fowler, Lombard
Moral reasoning
The fish rots from the head down.
Nowhere is this adage more evident than in the testimonies of the three presidents of our elite institutions, namely, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT. At House of Representatives hearings investigating antisemitism on their respective campuses, these heads of our most prestigious institutions concluded that the public call for genocide of the Jewish people by radical campus students might warrant disciplinary action — depending on the “context.” The questioner, GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, expressed indignation at receiving the same legalistic response from each interviewee.
Lawrence Kohlberg must be rolling in his grave! Kohlberg was the great researcher, educator and moral philosopher who dedicated his professional life at Harvard to helping his students develop moral reasoning skills enabling them make intelligent, just and moral decisions. He sought to develop “autonomous thinkers” who base their moral decisions upon justice without regard to convention or popularity or what their lawyers advise to say. These represent lower stages of moral decision-making.
Having studied Kohlberg’s writings for decades, I believe that he would have been appalled at the notion that the current president of his beloved university, Claudine Gay, would reduce the public call for “genocide” to be a matter of “context.”
Students calling for “genocide” against Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, the LGBTG+ community Asians, , Black people or any other ethnic or religious groups display a primitive sense of moral reasoning. We must have zero tolerance for such speech. Those who call for genocide must face swift and severe consequences up to and including expulsion from the university. There must be no room for equivocation or the ambiguity of “context.”
— Rabbi Michael A Myers, Chicago
What is antisemitic?
I wish for peace with justice in Israel, in Gaza and in the West Bank. Is that being antisemitic?
Is it antisemitic to work for a two state solution?
Is it antisemitic to demand of all warring parties that they follow the Geneva Conventions on rules of war, signed by 196 nations?
Is it antisemitic to mourn the deaths of both Israeli and Palestinian children and women?
Is it antisemitic to call for a cease fire?
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Is it antisemitic to ask Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza to help alleviate suffering and starvation?
Is it antisemitic to advocate the use of nonviolence resistance by all sides in this conflict?
Does wishing, working and praying for these things mean that I am antisemitic?
— The Rev. Martin Deppe, Chicago
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