Events

...this will do splendidly: A new long-distance train, the East Japan Railway Company’s Shiki-Shima, launched this week, and it’s already earning praise as perhaps the most luxurious train in the world. Its 10 cars hold 17 spacious suites, some kitted out with cypress bathtubs and lofts. And that’s not the only thing that makes it feel like a five-star hotel: This train also sports a piano bar, two glass-walled observatory cars, and even a Michelin-accredited restaurant. It holds up to 34 passengers...

Oh, I hope this art installation flies: In a planned one-day protest, four golden pig balloons will take anchor in the Chicago River, lined up to cover President Donald Trump's last name on his building's southeast facade.   The giant swine come by way of Chicago-based design company New World Design Ltd., and will arrive by barge. New World is still negotiating how and when the pigs will arrive, but architect and firm principal Jeffrey Roberts says he is confident the project will come to fruition....

I thought y'all would like this. Photo #1, 4th May 2007: Photo #2, 4th May 2017: Parker turns 11 on June 16th.

The New Yorker's Evan Osnos explores how President Trump might leave office before the end of his term, and how likely that is: Trump’s approval rating is forty per cent—the lowest of any newly elected President since Gallup started measuring it. Even before Trump entered the White House, the F.B.I. and four congressional committees were investigating potential collusion between his associates and the Russian government. Since then, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have become...

Forty four years ago today, workers in Chicago completed the Sears Tower: The original plan was to build two separate buildings. That was changed to a single structure, 1,454 feet high. As board chairman Gordon Metcalf explained, “Being the largest retailer in the world, we thought we should have the largest headquarters in the world.” Construction began in 1970. The foundations were dug, and the steel frame began to rise slowly over Wacker Drive. On the way up, the Sears Tower passed the former record...

For reasons that shall not be explained here, I have, for the last two weeks, binged on Lena Dunham's "Girls." For context, I'm in the middle of season 2 while simultaneously just done with season 6, episode 9. It's fookin' brilliant. More context: I went to school in New York. I lived through the late '90s in New York. I was, back then, in my 20s. I watched "Sex and the City" and wondered who those people were, even as I went to the same clubs and bars. I made horrible mistakes. No one guided me. Just...

Via security expert Bruce Schneier, the AP reports that police in central Connecticut obtained an arrest warrant partially on the timing of a murder victim's Fitbit step data: Connecticut State Police allege [Richard] Dabate killed 39-year-old Connie Dabate at their Ellington home two days before Christmas in 2015, while their two young sons were in school. Dabate told investigators a masked man shot his wife and tied him up before he burned the intruder with a torch. Authorities responded to a burglary...

The president gave a series of interviews yesterday that have people across the political spectrum perplexed, to say the least. Josh Marshall says they "generally seemed to be the work of a man simply tossing off ideas, rambling or simply drifting in and out of consciousness" and wonders if Trump "was experiencing some sort of collapse of cognition." Politico has more: President Donald Trump questioned why the Civil War— which erupted 150 years ago over slavery — needed to happen. He said he would be...

Just a quick observation, which I hope to expand upon later. Critics and supporters of President Trump alike have noticed that not only has he failed to achieve anything important on his own in the 102 days he's been in office, but the failures more resemble "a bullshit artist who caves easily and is best either ignored" than one would expect from a self-professed master of the art of the deal. (On the other hand, he has successfully enriched himself and his family through corruption, and will continue...

April seems to have gone quickly this year, but that could just be my advancing age. I'm hoping to have a little more inspiration this month to return to 40+ blog entries a month—i.e., the running average since November 2005. For the 12 months ending yesterday, my average (mean) has been 34.4 with a median of 35, just barely holding above 1.0 entries per day. Of course, the total number of entries doesn't really matter if they're good. Deeply Trivial took part in last month's A-to-Z blogging challenge...