Events

For more than four years, I have not failed to post an above-average number of entries each day. Since its official launch in November 2005, I've averaged about 1.28 entries per day. As of the last entry, the 39th for September, the average was 1.25. This makes it 1.33. It's a simple target, really: 40 or 41 per month, depending on the number of days in the month. Since one of the stated purposes of the blog is to encourage daily public writing, meeting this target is almost a requirement. Someday...

Little coincidences like this amuse me. I'm currently flying over Kansas, and I just got a New Republic update containing a readout by John Judis on the conservative hell that is below me: And yet for all his easygoing appeal, [Republican Kansas governor Sam] Brownback—who has long been fascinated by John Brown—is a true radical at heart. According to the author Jeff Sharlet, Brownback became involved with the Fellowship, a secret group that fused political conservatism with fervent Christian belief, as...

Friday's fire at the Air Route Traffic Control Center outside Chicago caused massive disruptions in U.S. aviation, but the FAA handled it pretty well: O'Hare is among the busiest airports in the world, and a main hub for United Airlines, one of the largest carriers. Hundreds of flights were cancelled, and tens of thousands of passengers delayed or stranded as the wave of flight disruptions spread beyond Chicago. Yet by early this week, the situation was already improving. One of the FAA's most important...

CityLabs has a cool pictoral on the evolution of Manhattan's Meatpacking District from the mid-1980s to now: From the High Line to the expensive shops and restaurants along the old cobblestone streets, everything looks quite different from when Brian Rose first brought his camera to the Meatpacking District. A young photographer in 1985, Rose spent a few days that winter walking around the area in the mid-afternoon, after the meat markets closed and before the sex clubs opened. Right around the time...

It's a beautiful fall Sunday in Chicago. Except the Bears lost to the Packers. Oh well.

Yesterday morning, someone set fire to the Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) in Aurora, Ill., effectively shutting down half the country's aviation: Brian Howard, 36, remains hospitalized with self-inflicted wounds following the incident that grounded nearly 2,000 flights in Chicago and wreaked havoc on air travel nationwide. He is expected to survive. The effects of the fire will continue to be felt at both Chicago airports through the weekend as stranded travelers scramble to find seats on...

And it's 5pm. And I'm still working on Thursday's work. Ex-cellent! While I'm figuring out what part of the week I missed, read about how a group photographers explored subterranean London.

Last night I got to see the Cubs win their home closer. I'll have photos this weekend. After the game I played a game of Euchre at a local pub, and got dealt an extraordinary: Right bower, left bower, trump ace, trump king, off ace. This hand is literally the second-best hand possible in the game. (Having trump queen instead of an off ace would be best.*) I made only one mistake: instead of slamming down all five cards at once and grinning stupidly, I slammed down the top four cards, grinned stupidly...

CityLabs' Laura Bliss wonders if straight-sided pint glasses should go away: Let's start at the beginning. A shaker glass was, and is, the 16-ounce glass half of a Boston cocktail shaker. They've been stocked behind bars for mixing drinks since the early 20th century, long before their takeover of American draft, as if waiting in the wings. Enter the post-War years, a time when American beer entered a long, steady decline. Prohibition had forced the vast majority of small breweries out of business...

A friend living in Greensboro, N.C., flagged a Times article about North Carolina's struggling to deal with the influx of northern progressives: Last year, aided by a new Republican governor, Pat McCrory, the legislature enacted one of the most far-reaching conservative agendas in the country, passing a “flattened” income tax that gives big breaks to the wealthy as well as new rules that limit access to voting, expand rights for gun owners and add restrictions for abortion providers. And yet, in a tight...