Events

An article in this month's Atlantic points out that we humans can wonder how we got here only because we got here: After all, there are 100-mile impact craters on our planet’s surface from the past billion years, but no 600-mile craters. But of course, there couldn’t be scars this big. On worlds where such craters exist, there is no one around afterward to ponder them. In a strange way, truly gigantic craters don’t appear on the planet’s surface because we’re here to look for them. Just as the wounds of...

Two of my almae matres yesterday advanced in the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. One of them, Duke, didn't exactly struggle, so I'll just acknowledge them for now. Another of them, Loyola University Chicago, didn't even expect to get to the tournament, so their win yesterday felt really great: Donte Ingram’s 3-pointer just before the final buzzer delivered the 11th-seeded Ramblers’ first NCAA tournament victory in 33 years — a 64-62 upset of No. 6 seed Miami. As the players partied Thursday afternoon...

Writing in the New York Times, University of Washington professor Cecilia Bitz sounds a four-klaxon alarm about the rapidly-warming Arctic: In late February, a large portion of the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole experienced an alarming string of extremely warm winter days, with the surface temperature exceeding 25 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. These conditions capped nearly three months of unusually warm weather in a region that has seen temperatures rising over the past century as greenhouse gas...

I'm writing a response to an RFP today, so I'll have to read these when I get a chance: Aaron Blake says that "Trump's admission that he made stuff up to Justin Trudeau is particularly bad." American Airlines has signed off on the city's O'Hare Expansion plan. Chicago's Deep Tunnel flood-control system got overloaded by a recent storm, despite a recent $1 bn upgrade. Bruce Schneier outlines how artificial intelligence can help defend against cyberattacks. Cranky Flyer thinks "airlines can't be stupid...

Citylab's Map of the Day today comes from Northeastern University history professor Benjamin Schmidt. It visualizes population data from three data sets, one of which came from a single Wikipedia editor: This is a narrative description of the city populations dataset I’ve assembled for the Creating Data project. The headline here is: Wikipedia editors have created a much more comprehensive database of American city and town populations than historians have had to this point. I’m writing it up separately...

In the last seven days, these things have happened: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (the worst Secretary of State in modern history?) got kicked out in typical Trump Administration fashion (i.e., without notice and on Twitter). This may have had something to do with him stating firmly that... ...Russian operatives attempted to assassinate a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England, resulting in... ...the UK government expelled 23 Russian diplomats after determining that the assassination attempt...

Soon-to-be-ex-Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed a bill that would have required licensing for gun stores: The governor, who is a hunter and told the station he is a member of the National Rifle Association, noted that the federal government already regulates firearms retailers. He said the proposal would create bureaucracy "that doesn't really keep our communities safer." The Democratic-controlled General Assembly sent the bill to Rauner a couple of weeks ago, and the governor could have waited to...

Saturday and Sunday, the Apollo Chorus sang Verdi's "Requiem" three times in its entirety (one dress rehearsal, two performances), not including going back over specific passages before Sunday's performance to clean up some bits. So I'm a little tired. Here are some of the things I haven't had time to read yet: I always read Andrew Sullivan's weekly column but I haven't had a chance yet. Democratic candidate Conor Lamb might win in a heavily-Republican district in Pennsylvania. (Disclosure: I have...

The Apollo Chorus of Chicago are performing Verdi's Requiem at the Holy Family Church, 1080 W. Roosevelt Rd., tonight at 7:30. Tickets are $40 at the door, and well worth it.

Jeet Heer, who usually writes about politics, today praised a movie that was horribly underrated when it came out 20 years ago this week: The shifting critical fortunes of The Big Lebowski are legendary. Roger Ebert initially gave the movie a mixed review because of its ramshackle plot, which “rushes in all directions and never ends up anywhere.” In 2010, he upgraded The Big Lebowski to the status of a “great” movie. Denby also changed his mind, according to a recent Washington Post survey of...