Say something nice about Chicago.

In America, a warehouse store. A fully roasted chicken costs five dollars, the raw chicken beside it costs seven, and I stood between them like a man between two truths. Golden. Hot. Seasoned. Spinning in glory under the lights, in a line of its brothers. Four dollars and ninety-nine cents. I checked the raw birds. Seven dollars. Pale. Cold. You must do everything yourself. This is not commerce. Commerce does not move backward. Somewhere in this building, mathematics lies defeated. I asked the man at the counter. "How is the cooked bird cheaper than the raw bird?" "Been five bucks forever. They keep it that way." "But the store loses." "Yep. On purpose." On purpose. I held my receipt with both hands. In my land, a lord who lowered the price of rice in a hard winter was remembered for generations. They built him a small shrine. This store does it every day, with chicken, and tells no one. A woman behind me grew tired of my reverence. "It's just a chicken, sir." It is not just a chicken. It is a wound the merchant takes on purpose, so that anyone, on any day, with five dollars, eats like a lord. The bird is the message. The price is the vow. I will confess: I bought two. I did not need two. The second was not hunger. It was gratitude, and it was delicious. Some prices are not prices. They are promises. I return every week now. I take one bird. I bow toward the deli, briefly, so as not to alarm the staff. They have begun nodding back. The vow holds. The bird turns. Five dollars. Long may it spin.

My most controversial middle aged sportswriter take: Bob Seger has better songs than Bruce Springsteen

Hegseth removed Chappie James's portrait from the Air Force Art Gallery and left the wall empty. James flew 179 combat missions across two wars. First Black four-star general in US military history. Curry passed that portrait every day for a decade. When it came down, he retired. The wall is still empty.

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving. Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free. I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these." "They just come with the table, man." They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner. This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat. I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared. "Did we…?" "Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless." Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined. My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude." Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man. I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy. Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived. I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most. Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

Historic Jackson Home opens at Greenfield Village, bringing civil rights history to metro Detroit STORY: wxyz.com/news/region/wayne-c…

JD Vance: If you go back to WW2 or every major conflict in human history, they all ended with some kind of negotiation.

BREAKING: Amazon data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025

"It's a lot more about what you're advocating for that gets you indicted or not indicted, rather than what you did," Abdul El-Sayed said on Friday night. detroitnews.com/story/news/p…

The reason Andor is aging poorly for me is because I realized the Empire is insanely incompetent in the show and it ruins the whole "actually evil serious threat" thing In the prison Cassian was through in there were a total of like 30 guards in the entire complex, which was a vital slave labor source for the most important industrial project the Empire was undertaking The Empire sent more soldiers to antagonize Ferrix during Aunt Petunia's funeral because they are mustache twirling saturday morning villains instead of a serious entity

Those who celebrate @elonmusk's $1 trillion fortune need to be reminded of a simple and vital truth: That there is a fundamental tension between extreme wealth and the very possibility of democracy.

Rest in peace to Gene Shalit, a man whose Kermit the Frog interview went absolutely off the rails in 1984. Nobody has interviewed a Muppet like this since.

I don’t mean to be callous. But if the IPO fizzled yesterday, would your situation be any different today? Are you worse off because he’s a trillionaire? Were you better off on Thursday when he wasn’t?

I am 52 years old. I have been working since I was 15 years old. I have no savings, no retirement, and will never own a home before I die. And there is now a trillionaire.

in nature if a monkey hoarded 1 trillion bananas the other monkeys would beat that monkey to death and take his bananas