CHICAGO — Here's what we're reading on this gloomy Friday. But hey, it's still Friday.
Skinny Jeans Are Dangerous?: It sounds like an Onion article but it's not: One woman was hospitalized because her skinny jeans were causing her to lose feeling in her legs, CNN reports. Turns out, squatting in skinny jeans that are too tight could cause nerve damage. In the case of this woman, she was helping a relative move so she was squatting a lot. Later, when she got home, her feet felt numb and she fell. She was lying on the ground for two hours until someone found her and took her to the hospital, according to CNN. Reporter Mina Bloom has heard of people suffering for fashion, but this seems extreme.
20,000 Slave Ships: Slate has tracked 300 years of the slave trade, mapping every voyage to slave-holding states in the New World and Europe from Africa. What is astounding is the scale of the trade to the Carribean and places like Brazil, dwarfing the United States.
Return of Happy Hour Means More Drunken Drivers: Bill Jacobs, owner of Wicker Park's Piece Brewery and Pizzeria, has taken his fight against Happy Hour to the New York Times. "I love great beer and I enjoy going out and having fun in a responsible manner. I strongly oppose the reinstitution of happy hours in Illinois," Jacobs writes, arguing with supporters of the bill whom say it will let Chicago compete with other cities for tourist dollars.
"But will tourists flock to Chicago because they can drink more for less at happy hour?" Jacobs asks and then answers his own question. "Right. Forget about the Art Institute. Forget about the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium, Navy Pier, great food, the Cubs, the Sox, Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks, the Bears, the Magnificent Mile, Lakefront Trail, the parks, the blues and jazz..." Read the whole thing here.
Lester Holt Remembers: Senior editor Andrew Herrmann has been reading profiles of new NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, who spent a number of years in Chicago as a reporter and anchor at CBS2. In the Los Angeles Times, Holt recalls landing the job in Chicago in 1986 and the tumult here when he arrived from New York's WCBS. Channel 2 was engulfed in a firestorm after the station had demoted black anchorman Harry Porterfield, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson leading a boycott against the station (a protest which some believe still affects the station to this day.) "I got that call and I was 27 years old," Holt tells the L.A. paper. "There was a tremendous amount of pressure. I didn't realize how much pressure it was going to be." Holt, says the story, dropped out of college to join an all-news radio station in Sacramento, Calif. riding around in a car listening to police and fire scanners.
Sounds like he could have worked for DNAinfo Chicago!
Lester Holt with son Stefan in the file photo from the Today Show. Stefan is now an NBC5 Chicago anchor and grew up in Lincoln Park as a child when Lester worked here for CBS2. [Today Show]
Young Bull: The Bulls surprised Chicago fans last night in the NBA draft by chosing a forward for the squad, which features an already crowded front court. The man they chose, Bobby Portis, was too hard to pass up on and was considered by some scouts a lottery pick. Reporter Paul Biasco is reading a Bleacher Report feature on Portis that chronicles his rough childhood growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas, and assent to the draft's "most intriguing sleeper."
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