News

Nov 20, 2023

Make NASCAR’s street race better, the Chicago way

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace drives a stock car around downtown Chicago in 2022.

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace drives a stock car around downtown Chicago in 2022. A reader from Belmont-Cragin has ideas for making the upcoming street race uniquely "Chicago."

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

We need to make the Chicago NASCAR course feel more true to the actual Chicago driving experience. I propose the following additions to the course:

Eric J. Kudzin, Belmont Cragin

Wonder why bus ridership is down?

I’m at Foster/Sheridan, outside Mariano's, on the bus, waiting, waiting for relief driver. Most got off. Relief finally comes. Next stop, typical sight, a bus out of commission. Nearing my my stop, at Hollywood/Sheridan, I call out my usual: "Walker getting off. I need the ramp please."

Drivers had previously told me to do this so they could stop at a safe place. This driver stopped at a narrow strip of sidewalk and grass. I tried but couldn't get down, scared of tipping over!

I said, "Drivers always stop further down." Driver retorted, "All the same, everywhere." Young guy offered to help, guided my walker but we could barely push it as one side was on the grass. He exclaimed, "Wow, that was tough!" Could not have made it without the Good Samaritan.

I ride buses four to five times a week. Buses out of commission at/near Mariano's are a common sight. One day last week, three were down.

I have no choice and will continue to ride for shopping and doctor appointments but not happy about it.

Barbara Tomko, Edgewater

We know the current idiocy of trying to ban disliked ideas has reached its peak when the Bible, also called The Good Book, has been banned from elementary and middle schools in Salt Lake City for "vulgarity and violence," a pseudonym for sex.

Forget that the Bible has survived intact for some 5,000 years without a documented case of its content making bad citizens out of good citizens of any age. Would it even be the Bible if it didn't deal with all aspects of human behavior? Nor, safe to say, is the Bible on teenagers’ reading lists for its prurient content. Never mind that teenagers already know that any aspect of sex is readily available via the internet to anyone in all its graphic permutations. Or, that the mechanics of sex are likely taught in biology class under reproduction.

But don't despair: It has not been banned from high schools there, which means kids 15 and older can heave a sigh of relief, because soon enough they can catch up on their reading of scripture and see what they had missed earlier, if they hadn't already secretly done so to see what all the fuss was about.

Either everybody wants to get on the banning bandwagon, or this is just a clever scheme to get teenagers to sneak-read the Bible using reverse psychology.

Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park