If it ain't broke, don't replace it -- even if it is avocado

Persons who spend too much time online -- a group that probably includes you inasmuch as you are reading this (it certainly includes me) -- will recognize this meme from Facebook or IG or, as Bill Belichick might put it, Snap-Face:

I can't credit the originator of this work, but I tracked this image down this morning on a site called MemeZila.com.

In The Free Press this morning Walter Kirn offers a more literary, and therefore lengthier, take on this fundamental truth. In Kirn's essay, O Holy Crap, the indestructible appliance is a citrus juicer, not a sickly green refrigerator (marketed as "avocado").

But the idea is the same: After introducing us to his immortal juicer (it dates to about 1940, he has determined), Kirn recounts a host of appliances, large and small, all purchased with the best of intentions and often from the very tip-top shelves (Kirn has enjoyed some material success as a novelist) that have wound up consigned to the local landfill, exposed as mere gewgaws and gimcracks, and all too soon. He writes:

It’s important to get to the essayistic part, where I ask what it means when the objects in our lives demoralize us in a blizzard of malfunctions that seem to be hastening by the month. But it’s also important—to me, emotionally—to bury the reader in details of the unceasing material disappointments I’ve faced. Disappointments of the sort we will all be facing en masse in a few days. Merry Christmas!

I could also cite several examples of my own seemingly indestructible appliances, surviving long past their freshness date. I won't, of course, because, well, karma. Don't tempt fate; that's my motto.

But I have to admit that the idea of older things lasting longer and working better than their newly-minted, would-be replacements is one that has become increasingly appealing to me as time goes on. I can't imagine why....

Challenging times ahead for some municipal candidates...

But only some.

Six challenges have been filed to the nominating petitions of five candidates in the Chicago Mayor's race.

That means that six of the 11 total mayoral candidates were not challenged. This happy half dozen includes Mayor Lori Lightfoot and several of her higher-profile challengers, to wit, Paul Vallas, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, and the candidate backed by the Chicago Teacher's Union, Brandon Johnson.

Also not drawing challenges in the mayoral race were State Rep. Kam Buckner and 4th Ward Ald. Sophia King.

But three of the better-known mayoral hopefuls did draw challenges, namely, Dr. Willie Wilson, 6th Ward Ald. Roderick Sawyer, and Ja'Mal Green.

The two least-known mayoral candidates also drew challenges. I've been including campaign websites in this post where I can find them; I can't find one (yet) for Cong. Garcia. But, obviously, he'll have one soon enough.

I'm not too certain, however, that Johnny Logalbo will have one, whether the challenge against him is sustained or not. Logalbo does have a private Facebook group called Johnny Logalbo For Mayor 2023. You have to join to see what's there. I haven't done so at this point.

Mayoral candidate Frederick Collins does have a website; I've linked to it in this sentence. That website says that Collins has been a Chicago policeman for nearly 30 years.

Kevin Hobby is the named petitioner on the challenge to Willie Wilson's petition, although Ja'Mal Green has announced that he is behind this challenge.

It is not often (and certainly there is no requirement) that a candidate announces that he or she is behind a challenge to another candidate's petitions. Political insiders will know who is behind former State Sen. Rickey Hendon's challenges to Ja'Mal Green's and Roderick Sawyer's petitions. Or who is supporting Andre Holland's challenges to Johnny Logalbo's and Frederick Collins' petitions. At least the insiders will say they know. Former Judge Devlin Schoop has filed a separate challenge to the Logalbo's petitions as well.

In several aldermanic contests there are challenges to nearly all candidates' petitions. But, interestingly, on the Northwest Side, there are very few aldermanic candidates facing challenges.

Neither candidate in the 41st Ward has been challenged. Similarly, and perhaps surprisingly, at least based on posts I see in my Twitter feed, none of the six candidates in the 45th Ward will face any ballot challenge. Also, neither of the candidates in the 39th Ward has been challenged. On the Northwest Side, it is only in the 38th Ward that any challenges can be found: But, even here, only two of the six candidates filing will have to deal with a challenge. These are Gregory T. Schorsch and Franco Reyes.