CHICAGO — Happy Monday! Here's what we're reading today.
Born in Chicago: Senior editor Andrew Herrmann notes that among those inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this weekend was The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, honored for integrating Chicago blues into rock. Butterfield's son Gabe is making a film about his father who, as a Hyde Park teen, snuck into the city's great blues clubs and became hooked. Gabe Butterfield tells the Woodstock Times that his dad's training as a flute player helped develop a unique harmonica sound. "He used to go out on Promontory Point and play every day," the son says. Paul Butterfield died in 1987 from an accidental drug overdose.
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was honored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony that included Libertyville's Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. [Getty Images/Mike Coppolla]
I Can Be Your Hero, Baby: Though rats are often seen as pests in Chicago, the New York Times writes that 3-foot-long Gambian pouched rats are sniffing out land mines in Angola, Africa. They're called HeroRats, and they can also detect tuberculosis in samples more quickly and accurately than a human with a microscope. You can "adopt" a HeroRat for $84, FYI, if you've got a friend with a birthday coming up.
Are You a Cool Kid or a Prom King? Jay Leno is long gone, but the feud between Conan O'Brien and "The Tonight Show" recently reignited in the form of a Twitter rant by a member of O'Brien's writing staff against the current state of late-night comedy. Jimmy Fallon was the clear target of tweets that took aim at pranks, celebrity cameos and lip-synch battles dubbed "Prom King Comedy" by O'Brien staffer Andrés du Bouchet. In his coverage of the social media kerfuffle, Uproxx writer Jason Tabrys holds up Stephen Colbert as the potential savior of late-night — an innovative trailblazer who'll be the "cool kid" ying to Fallon's populist yang. Reporter Patty Wetli thinks reinventing an entire medium is a lot of pressure to put on Colbert's shoulders. But she's keen to see what "innovation" might look like at 10:30 p.m., short of not having a host sit behind a desk interviewing celebrities. Oh yeah, it was called "Nightline."
Michigan Shipwrecks Revealed As Weather Heats Up: Reporter Mina Bloom visits northern Michigan often, so when the Chicago Tribune posted photos of shipwrecks off the Leelanau Peninsula, she took a look. As the article points out, there are a bunch of 19th and 20th century shipwrecks in the Manitou Passage, which is an area between the North and South Manitou islands. Little known fact: you can swim out to them and explore for yourself.
What's going on in East Africa? Apparently albinos are being attacked — and in many cases eaten — according to a Washington Post story that has Senior Editor Justin Breen horrified. The Post says albinos are being murdered and their parts are sold for witchcraft. In Malawi, one government official said anyone who is caught attacking an albino would be shot. “Shoot every criminal who is violent when caught red-handed abducting people with albinism,” Malawi’s inspector general of police, Lexen Kachama, told Reuters. “We cannot just watch while our friends with albinism are being killed like animals every day.”
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