Vote / Buttigieg boom / A__holes in the news

Vote. With low turnout projected in today’s elections, your ballot takes on disproportionate importance …
■ As the Tribune’s Eric Zorn notes, a short ballot in Chicago means that “seldom has performing your civic duty been so easy.”
■ And the polls are open until 7 p.m.

■ If you live in the suburbs, it’s Election Day for you, too.
■ Politico: Six things to watch in tonight’s returns.
■ New York magazine has assembled an oral history from the people who worked to elect Harold Washington Chicago’s first black mayor in 1983.

Oops. Yesterday’s Square quoted a Trib editorial encouraging people to vote—a piece that The Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes noted got comedian George Carlin’s point exactly backward,
■ The Trib’s since corrected the editorial.
■ The Carlin routine in question is a defense of not voting: “I … who did not vote … have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”
■ Still: You—you smart reader, you—you should vote … after checking the Chicago Public Square voter guide …
■ … and watch for updates on the results tonight via the Square channels on Twitter and Facebook.

Buttigieg boom. Think local elections don’t matter? Check this Google search interest chart to see how the presidential campaign of South Bend Mayor (Mayor!) Pete Buttigieg (pronounced Buddha-judge) is taking off.

■ Buttigieg interviewed by The Washington Post: “We need to present a different account of American greatness, that doesn’t situate it in the past.”
■ The leader of a progressive group that hasn’t endorsed yet: “He’s disrupting the entire 2020 race.”
■ The Post’s James Hohmann: Bernie Sanders “might be the only Democrat running for president who doesn’t need to pander to the left.”
■ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to ex-VP and potential presidential candidate Joe Biden: “Join the straight-arm club” and keep women at a physical distance.

‘Someone other than WBEZ needs to look at this.’ WBEZ’s investigation of Chicago’s towing program finds that “the city sells one in four towed vehicles. It pays a contractor with residents’ cars, yet the city barely makes money.” (WBEZ graphic.)
■ A departing Chicago alderman delivered a farewell April Fools’ Day joke.

Chicago’s most competitive high school. The Sun-Times says the hardest to get into is …
■ HuffPost: “Universities had a chance to make a quality education affordable for everyone. Here’s the … infuriating history of what they did instead.”

A__holes in the news.
■ Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his show last night by mocking MSNBC host (and former Chicago newspaper journalist) Chris Hayes as “what every man would be if feminists ever achieved absolute power in this country: apologetic, bespectacled, and deeply, deeply concerned about global warming.”
■ The Wall Street Journal: Massachusetts regulators say Wynn Resorts executives participated in a coverup to protect founder Steve Wynn from sexual misconduct charges.
■ Columbia Journalism Review: After release of a deposition video, conspiracy-theory monger Alex Jones is “arguably less powerful now … than he ever has been”
■ Happy International Fact-Checking Day.

Burger King, meatless. The vegetarian Impossible Whopper takes a bow this week in Missouri.
■ Kellogg’s decision to bail on the cookie business puts brands including Keebler, Famous Amos and Girl Scout cookies under control of new corporate leadership in Chicago.

Google+ dies today. Google’s one-time Facebook challenger goes the way of all things mortal today, killed in part by a rash of security failures.
■ Coming to Google’s Gmail—at last: The ability to “send later.”
■ Google’s new reputational fiasco: Employee objections to inclusion of a gender-equality-regressive conservative on its ethics advisory board.
■ Happy Equal Pay Day.

And speaking of pay … If you value Chicago Public Square, you can help keep it growing by pledging a few cents a day.