The Nooner | Chicago news and beyond | December 5, 2011

The Nooner: Chicago news and beyond
Today's news is about Ron Santo and a really big insect.

Ron Santo elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
Having being named on 15 of the 16 Veteran’s Committee ballots this year, baseball great and radio commentator Ron Santo was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame today. Santo passed away almost exactly a year ago—December 3, 2010—and is the 10th player to make the Hall wearing a Cubs hat. During his 15-year career, the five-time Gold Glove winner finished in the top ten in batting averages three times. He’ll be officially inducted this summer.

Look at this huge insect
For an animal, the giant weta is not that giant. But for an insect, it’s huge. The biggest in the world, in fact. In this picture, which you will either love or hate, he is making short work of a carrot. A carrot. He’s as heavy as three mice. If you’re worried about finding one of these guys living in your sock drawer some terrible morning, put your fears to rest: Giant wetas only live on Little Barrier Island in New Zealand. The island’s paucity of predators leaves a niche available for giganto cricket-looking-things, apparently. I kinda want one.    

You know that times are getting super-weird…
…when instead of offering candy, people are trying to lure children into their cars by asking if they want to “see a mansion.” Welcome to late capitalism, my fellow Americans. Downers Grove police are looking for a woman who approached two 9-year-old boys with that exact offer. The boys did not go with her, and she didn’t attempt to grab them, but I suppose there’s not much question that there was something amiss with the situation.

Ask Cranky Tom Skilling
This hilarious spoof on always-affable weatherman Tom Skilling kills me. Claire Zulkey over at WBEZ re-creates Skilling’s popular “Ask Tom Why” series with a Skilling doppelgänger who is damn tired of your stupid questions about the weather. He starts out peevish and quickly spirals into burning rage. When he answered a question with “Cloudy with a chance of shut the hell up,” I snorted a little coffee up my nose here at my desk. Claire Zulkey, you’re proving Christopher Hitchens wrong. High-five across the internet. Not that the poor man needs any more abuse after Tina Fey landed the zing heard ‘round the world.

Tom Hanks’s kid wants to borrow your class notes
Northwestern University student Chet Hanks a.k.a. Chet Haze aka Tom Hanks’s kid sent out a late-night plea for class notes. A fellow student forwarded it to Gawker, which promptly mocked Haze for it. I feel bad for Haze—he’s a procrastinator, but he’s nice about his request, and who among us hasn’t put something off until way too late, right? I hope somebody was willing to share class notes with him. What I want to know is—who's the nasty piece of work who forwarded Haze’s post to Gawker?