John Kass
John Kass has covered a variety of topics since arriving at the Chicago Tribune in 1983.
The son of a Greek immigrant grocer, Kass was born June 23, 1956, on Chicago’s South Side and grew up there and in Oak Lawn. He held a number of jobs—merchant marine sailor, ditch digger, waiter—before becoming a film student at Columbia College in Chicago. There, he worked at the student newspaper and caught the attention of Daryle Feldmeir, chairman of the journalism department and former editor of the Chicago Daily News.
Feldmeir and journalism professor Les Brownlee helped him obtain an internship at the Daily Calumet in 1980, where Kass worked as a reporter until he left for the Tribune.
In 2004, Kass was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi national award for general column writing, the Scripps Howard Foundation’s National Journalism Award for commentary, the Press Club of Atlantic City’s National Headliner Award for local interest column writing on a variety of subjects, and the Chicago Headline Club’s Lisagor Award for best daily newspaper columnist.
In 1992, Kass won the Chicago Tribune’s Beck Award for writing.
Kass lives in the western suburbs with his wife and twin sons. His column appears on Page A2 of the Chicago Tribune every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.
Recent Work
When I was a boy about 11, I committed a crime that changed my life. I stole a book. I was a book thief. I found it in another kid’s desk and began reading, hiding it behind some boring textbook, and couldn’t give it up. And... Read More
In the pre-COVID-19 days, there were those large, intergenerational Sunday dinners when nothing was off the table for discussion in America. Even now, if we were sitting down together, we’d talk of President Donald Trump lying to his supporters about overturning the election, before he incited... Read More
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need,” said Marcus Tullius Cicero. Old Marcus could have been talking about coping with these pandemic lockdowns, but he wasn’t. Happily, I have a home library, but no garden. And I can’t possibly go... Read More
My mother is 90 years old, one of the elderly isolated in nursing homes, unable to hug and kiss her children, alone because of the pandemic. And this will be our first Christmas apart. She lived with us for 25 years. But after her stroke, she’d... Read More
Attorney General William Barr, vilified witlessly and unreasonably for years by the left — and most recently by conservatives — has just performed two critically important services to the republic: After the election, Barr refused to put his name or the Department of Justice behind any... Read More
When we were kids on the playground and there was an angry dispute, someone would always shout “majority rules.” And we’d vote. If the losers didn’t like the outcome, there were two options: punch the winners in the stomach or take the ball and go home.... Read More
President Donald Trump’s failure to loudly and forcefully condemn white supremacists in his debate with Joe Biden was an unmitigated disaster that may have cost him a chance at reelection. What Americans witnessed in the chaotic dumpster fire of a debate was this: an angry, stubborn... Read More
In just a few weeks, millions of people from around the world will be weeping, screaming, pulling out their hair and issuing piteous cries of rage and grief while eating ice cream on the couch. Because in just a few weeks, HBO's series "Game of Thrones,"... Read More
The funeral of former President George H.W. Bush was a great celebration of a noble American patriot. There were the tears of his son that I won't forget. And there was the respect shown to him by his nation. Read More
If there is one thing worse than that photograph of a little Honduran boy breathing through an oxygen mask after being hit with tear gas on our Southern border, it's this: Using that image as a sentimental weapon to fend... Read More
That a grandstanding show pony like CNN's Jim Acosta would be transformed by President Donald Trump into a First Amendment crusader knight is perhaps a sad but fitting comment on our age. Acosta is back at work... Read More
After the midterm elections, Americans were still trying to see past the political spin to the serious implications of it all. Did the Democrats win a short-term victory by taking the House and, with it, subpoena power allowing... Read More
When Kanye West condemned a Republican president after Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans, Democrats and their media biscuit eaters weren't all that upset. Many were overjoyed that West, the megastar from... Read More
Future historians probably won't devote entire volumes to Hollywood actor Matt Damon for his part in the grotesque savaging of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Sadly, Damon will most likely be just a footnote, some jester in... Read More
It is tempting to watch the political spectacle of Democrats destroying Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as if it were only some shameful partisan circus. Read More
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and former President Barack Obama are out making stump speeches, rallying the Democratic base for the critical midterm elections in November in the hopes of crippling President Donald Trump by taking control of Congress. Read More
Mayor Rahm Emanuel drops a political bombshell on Chicago, announcing he won't run for re-election, and just like that the race for mayor has been transformed: It's Lord of the Flies on LaSalle Street. Read More
As Roman Catholic bishops tear at each other, as Pope Francis refuses comment even while standing accused of covering up sexual abuse, I thought of a Bible story. Read More
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