The Daily Parker

Welcome to stop #128 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Black Lung Brewing, 115 Nippersink Rd., Fox Lake
Train line: Milwaukee District North, Fox Lake (Zone 4)
Time from Chicago: 105 minutes
Distance from station: 750 m

Fox Lake isn't the farthest station from downtown Chicago on the Metra system. At 110 km, that honor goes to Harvard; Fox Lake is only 80 km out. And yet, as I discovered yesterday, it can take almost 3 hours to get back to Union Station if the aging-but-repainted SD70MACH locomotive can't go backwards. (Thank you, America, for strangling public transit for decades and wondering why it sucks!)

Regardless, I don't regret the trip. Because just a 10-minute walk from the Fox Lake station along the lake shore you will find the Black Lung Brewing taproom and its pleasant beer garden.

Despite the overcast skies and Canadian wildfire smoke, and despite my train arriving 45 minutes before the brewery opened, I sat by the lake and read my book and didn't want to leave. If Metra had an option for returning to the city between 4:25 pm and 8:37 pm, I would have stayed for a while longer, but I didn't want to get home after 11 pm.

The beer was not bad. I started with the Trampled By Sliders Pale (5.5%, SRM 6), "brewed in collaboration with the Grayslake Youth Baseball Association." It had a nice bitter/malt balance and short finish, with a good flavor. The Maui Wowie Hazy IPA (6.5%, 25 IBU) had lots of hops right off the bat without being overwhelming, a smooth mouthfeel, and a long finish. A bit less Citra flavor than expected. And thanks to bartender Joanie for a half-pint lagniappe when the keg kicked on her first draw.

It is a very long way to go, unfortunately. And yet I think I'll stop by again this summer—perhaps even this weekend, since I had already planned a Brews & Choos expedition to the hardest-to-reach brewery in the Metra system tomorrow.

One other thing: in addition to their production facility and taproom in Round Lake Beach, Black Lung has taken over the Light the Lamp space in Grayslake and plans to open in August. When I get out there in the fall, why not stop at the Fox Lake taproom as well?

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? Yes, avoidable
Serves food? Full pub menu
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Because I'm about to hit my PTO cap at work, I'm taking the next few Friday afternoons off. Today I've planned a Brews & Choos trip out to the wilds of Lake County. Check back tomorrow for the result!

Meanwhile, I have more meetings...

First, an update on Cassie: her spleen and lymph cytology came back clean, with no evidence of mast cell disease. That means the small tumor on her head is likely the only site of the disease, and they can pop it out surgically. We'll probably schedule that for the end of June.

I have had an unusually full calendar this week, so this afternoon I blocked off three and a half hours with "No Meetings - Coding." Before I dive into finishing up the features for what I expect will be the 129th boring release of the product I'm working on, I am taking a moment to read the news, which I have not had time to do all day:

• Inae Oh reminds everyone that, while the Clown Prince of X may have departed his blatantly unlawful role in the White House after failing to achieve any of his stated objectives, he has nonetheless made everyone's life worse.
• Sherron Watkins and Cynthia Cooper, the two whistleblowers who blew up the spectacular frauds at Enron and WorldCom in 2001, warn that the GOP plans to make spectacular fraud great again by eliminating the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
• Jennifer Rubin laments the OAFPOTUS's foreign policy malpractice.
• The administration's shift of national-security assets toward Stephen Miller's pogrom against immigrants has hobbled our efforts to combat domestic terrorism, forcing the states to make do with far fewer resources.
• David Ignatius believes that "the way to end the Gaza war has been clear for nearly a year," but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to stop fighting for purely domestic political reasons.
• King Charles III's visit to Canada this week was "an audaciously disjunctive event," writes The Guardian's Martin Kettle. "[T]he modern British monarchy has stood up and demanded to be counted, doing something new and perhaps genuinely consequential."
• NPR's Steve Inskeep remarks on how his interviews with polarizing figures like US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Republican über-troll Steve Bannon have been received by other media outlets.

Finally, the city of Chicago has started formal negotiations with the Union Pacific Railroad to acquire an abandoned right-of-way on the Northwest Side—that Cassie and I walked on just a week ago and that my Brews & Choos buddy and I used to get to Alarmist back in November 2023. The project still requires a few million dollars and a few years to complete. Still, the city also is talking about building a protected bike lane along Bryn Mawr Avenue in the North Park and Lincoln Square Community Areas, which would connect the Weber Spur with the North Shore trail just east of the Chicago River. For the time being, the UPRR doesn't seem to mind people walking on their right-of-way, though technically it's still private property. But that trail will be really cool when completed.

And now, I will finish this feature...

On some days, I have more meetings than others. Today was a more extreme example, with meetings for 6 of the 8½ hours I put in. Somehow I also managed to read some documentation and get some other things accomplished. I also can't say that any of the meetings was a waste of time, either. Welcome back to management.

Unfortunately, that meant I could only put these stories in a queue so I can read them now:

• William Finnegan wonders if he or Homeland Security Secretary Kristi "Dead Puppies" Noem is brain-damaged.
• Chicago's animal shelters report a surge in surrenders as people discover pets cost a lot of money (I'm looking at you, Cassie).
• Does it make sense for the CDC to recommend that healthy children and pregnant women not get a covid booster? Yes, with some pretty big caveats, and a reminder that corruption and incompetence make it really hard to trust what comes out of the executive branch these days.
• With only a couple of days left until the Illinois legislature lets public transit in Chicago fall off a cliff, a bill is slouching towards the governor's desk to reorganize our multiple transit agencies into one big one.

OK, Cassie is sitting next to me and staring into my eyes with an intense "feed me" vibe, so off I go. I really hope I have fewer meetings tomorrow.

Like yesterday, today I took Cassie somewhere she'd never been before, giving her an amazing array of new smells and rodents to chase. We went up to the Green Bay Trail in Winnetka, covering just under 5 km, and passing a somewhat-recognizable house along the way:

We'll spend more time outside today, though it really hasn't warmed up yet (current temperature: 15°C). She doesn't mind.

I encountered a couple of head-scratchers in today's news feeds. They seem like parodies but, sadly, aren't.

Exhibit the first: Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss (Cons.—South West Norfolk), who got tossed from office in less time than it takes for a head of lettuce to rot because of her disastrous mismanagement of the UK economy, has an op-ed in today's Washington Post praising the OAFPOTUS and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for the "herculean task ahead of them in turning around the U.S. economy and gripping the deep state that has promoted managed decline."

This comes just a day after economist Paul Krugman reminded the world exactly how Truss crashed the UK economy, and how the OAFPOTUS's big, awful bill would be worse. (Her funniest line: "I faced a barrage of criticism from establishment economists who claimed that these actions would stoke inflation and increase the deficit." Yes, because, you see, my dear Mrs Truss, the establishment economists can do arithmetic.)

Exhibit the second: The New York Times' real-estate section asks, "Is this Chicago suburb for you?" The suburb is Elmhurst, so I can tell the Times quite unequivocally that it isn't. I mean, if you're looking to trash some lovely old housing stock and build a McMansion hellscape, then maybe it's for you, like it is for this young couple:

Drew and Ariana Voelsch, a couple in their early 30s, moved to Elmhurst in 2023, from River Forest, a suburb just west of Chicago. They tore down a 1,176-square-foot farmhouse to construct their 5,000-square-foot dream home, a common practice among buyers in Elmhurst.

Why. Just, why. Anyone want to bet the 110 m² house they destroyed fit nicely on the lot and the 465 m² house their builders slapped together looks like an alien dropped it there from the Bizarro dimension?

Look, if you want a suburb with a variety of interesting housing stock, pretty tree-lined streets, and its own connection to the urban fabric of Chicago, might I suggest Evanston? Or if it has to be west of the city, how about Wheaton, which has a lovely downtown and a (mostly) walkable core around it? Or—I'm asking you, Mr and Mrs Voelsch—River Forest?

(I'll also call out Kate Wagner's post last month in Patreon that can't be missed: "The McMansionization of the White House, or: Regional Car Dealership Rococo: a treatise." Because some people need another reminder that the OAFPOTUS is what poor people think a rich person is like, and what an actual rich person thinks is hideous.)

I have to take Cassie to the vet now, but I will return to the absurd and troubling world around us when I get back.

We've had a run of dreary, unseasonably cold weather that more closely resembles the end of March than the middle of May. I've been looking at this gloom all day:

We may have some sun tomorrow afternoon through the weekend, but the forecast calls for continuous north winds and highs around 16°C—the normal high for April 23rd, not May 23rd. Summer officially starts in 10 days. It sure doesn't feel like it.

Speaking of the gloomy and the retrograde:

• Former US judge and George HW Bush appointee J. Michael Luttig argues that the OAFPOTUS "is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate."
• In a case of "careful what you wish for," FBI Director Dan Bongino can't escape his past conspiracy theorizing but also can't really escape the realities of (or his lack of qualifications for) his new position.
• Writer Louis Pisano excoriates Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez for their "idea that billionaires can buy their way into virtue with just enough gala invitations, foundation launches, and pocket-change donations" in Cannes this week.
• Adam Kinzinger shakes his fist at the OAFPOTUS-murdered Voice of America, now "subsidized by taxpayer dollars [to broadcast] Trump-aligned propaganda in 49 languages worldwide."
• Jen Rubin, vacationing in Spain, explains how the country's centuries-long Catholic purges of Jews and Muslims drove their globe-spanning empire into irrelevance. "The notion that national defense required ethnic and religious homogeneity not only resulted in mass atrocities, it also deprived Spain of many of the people and ideas that had helped it become a world power," she concludes. (Not that we need to worry here in the US, right?)
• Chuck Marohn shakes his head at the Brainerd, Minn., city council for ignoring his advice and building massive infrastructure they can't afford to maintain.
• Metra has formally taken control of the commuter trains running on Union Pacific track, including the one that goes right past Inner Drive Technology WHQ.
• The village of Dolton, Ill., has informed potential buyers of Pope Leo XVI's childhood home that it intends to invoke eminent domain and work with the Archdiocese of Chicago on preserving the building. Said the village attorney, "We don't want it to become a nickel-and-dime, 'buy a little pope' place."

Speaking of cashing in on the Chicago Pope, Burning Bush Brewery has just released a new mild ale called "Da Pope." Next time Cassie and I go to Horner Park, we'll stop by Burning Bush and one of us will try it. (Un?)Fortunately, we won't have time to get there by 11pm Friday, so we'll miss the $8 Chicago Pope Handshake special (a pint of Da Pope and a shot of Malört). Dang.

Chuck Marohn makes an important and oft-overlooked point about North American street design, and asks, why are we subsidizing mega corporations at our own expense?

Just a couple of eye-rolling stories. First, Charlie Warzel mocks the OAFPOTUS's "tactical burger unit:"

We now inhabit a world beyond parody, where the pixels of reality seem to glitch and flicker. Consider the following report from Trump’s state visit to Saudi Arabia this week, posted by the foreign-affairs journalist Olga Nesterova: “As part of the red-carpet treatment, Saudi officials arranged for a fully operational mobile McDonald’s unit to accompany President Trump during his stay.” A skeptical news consumer might be inclined to pause for a moment at the phrase fully operational mobile McDonald’s unit, their brain left to conjure what those words could possibly mean.

It’s worth emphasizing that all of this is pretty embarrassing. Multiple news outlets, including Fox News, framed the truck as an act of burger diplomacy; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pandered to a mercurial elderly man, ostensibly to guarantee that a slender beef patty was never far from his lips. As with all things Trump, it’s hard to know exactly what to believe. Is the burger unit a stylized but mostly normal bit of state-visit infrastructure, or is it a bauble meant to please the Fast-Food President? In a world where leaders seem eager to bend the knee to Trump’s every impulse, even the truly ridiculous seems plausible. The mere fact of all of this is unmooring. When strung together, the words fully operational mobile McDonald’s unit overwhelm my synapses; there could be no funnier or dumber phrase to chisel out of the English language.

All hail Meal Team Six!

I also wanted to call out today's Times story about the declining fortunes of ride-share drivers at Los Angeles International Airport:

In the early years of app-based platforms like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, people flocked to sign up as drivers. The idea of making money simply by driving someone around in your own car, on your own schedule, appealed to many, from professional chauffeurs looking for extra work to employees working in the service industry who realized they could break free of the 9-to-5 grind.

And in the early years, wages were high. Drivers would regularly take home thousands of dollars a week, as Uber and Lyft pushed growth over profits, posting quarterly losses in the billions of dollars. Then, when they became public companies, profitability became a focus, and wages gradually shrank.

Now, earnings have fallen behind inflation, and for many drivers have decreased. Last year, Uber drivers made an average of $513 a week in gross earnings, a 3.4 percent decline from the previous year, even as they worked six minutes more a week on average...

This is simply an overabundance of drivers chasing a declining population of travelers. This is the whole reason taxi regulations came into being: to ensure that taxi drivers could make a fair living doing their jobs. It's a pretty glaring display of the tragedy of the commons, too.

I'll have more to say about this soon.

As Crash Davis said to Annie Savoy all those years ago: A player on a streak has to respect the streak. Well, I'm on a coding streak. This week, I've been coding up a storm for my day job, leaving little time to read all of today's stories:

• Despite (or perhaps because of) his obvious mental illness and dementia, the OAFPOTUS is really a predictable negotiator who our adversaries have figured out how to manipulate easily.
• Voters may not like the OAFPOTUS, but they don't like us either. Still, the OAFPOTUS has Republicans squirming more and more each day.
• Speaking of dislike, the Qatari airplane bribe is different because "morons understand it." (Morons and MAGA Republicans, Jennifer Rubin clarifies.)
• Oh, and the Republican tax bill will come down particularly hard on the same people, too.
• Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson (D) complains that he hasn't done enough to convince people he's doing a good job. Perhaps--and let me just suggest something wild here--like actually doing a good job?
• Google has rolled new security features for Android phones, which you should turn on.
• The first bridge linking Michigan Avenue across the Chicago River opened 105 years ago today.

Finally, Ernie Smith, who also had a childhood pastime of reading maps for fun, examines why MapQuest became "the RC Cola" of mapping apps. Tl;dr: corporate mergers are never about product quality.