Events

Sometimes, on Saturday afternoon, you just have to binge-watch Netflix while going through old boxes. I haven't told Parker that there will soon be more boxes. And then more boxes. And then nothing but boxes. He'll find that out on his own in good time. For now, I'll just let him believe that I'm rearranging things because that's what humans do sometimes. But he's eyeing the boxes warily. I think he suspects that his life is about to get disrupted. To the extent that he can suspect anything, or...

The Economist's Gulliver blog this morning asked exactly the same question I did when I woke up: how likely is it to get ill from flying on an airplane? Not very: Planes are widely regarded as flying disease-incubators. If one passenger is sick with a contagious disease and coughing those germs into the air, it makes sense for fellow-flyers to feel that the germs will simply be inhaled by everyone else on the flight, since there is nowhere else for the things to go. In reality, though, the situation is...

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an anonymous op-ed from a "senior White House official" that described a "resistance" inside the White House against President Trump's insanity. Greg Sargent calls bullshit: If anything, the sum total of the revelations offered, while valuable in some respects, reveals the sharp limits on which Trumpian impulses these greatly alarmed patriots discern to be seriously damaging to the country. In so doing, it actually reveals just how deeply insufficient these constraining...

This coffee shop, on Bermondsey Street: And this airplane: Actually, the A380 was pretty cool inside, though I may have erred getting an upper-deck seat. Next trip to London, I'll go for a lower-deck seat if I can. (Or even business class...hmmm...)

Getting off the airplane yesterday, I discovered that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is hanging them up: After nearly three decades of intense public life, from Chicago to the White House to Congress and back again, it was time for this “empty nester”—the term Emanuel kept dropping, to move on. Likely with a huge push from his wife. The prospect of the upcoming election, which Emanuel insisted he “without a doubt” would have won, wasn't the deciding factor. In the interview, Emanuel also said he’s “probably...

I'm sitting in Heathrow Terminal 5 watching planes take off and hoping space opens up in the pay-as-you-go lounge. Wow, do I miss having airline status. Obviously posting will be light today. Tomorrow I hope to get my annual Parker Day photo, just a few days late.

Apparently Josef Ratzinger, who resigned from being Pope, seems not to understand how resignations actually work: Ever since Pope Benedict XVI became the first pontiff in six centuries to abdicate the papacy, transitioning to a life of near seclusion in a Vatican City monastery, there have been questions about how the notion of two living popes would impact the Roman Catholic Church. The events of last week offer something of an answer. Although many people hoped to hear from Benedict amid new...

This is how I spent an hour of my holiday today: It's beautiful out: 21°C, mostly sunny, with a gentle breeze. But I walked that far in less than an hour, so I'm now back at my hotel to shower. Still, this is exactly how I needed to spend today.

In late 2016, someone apparently attacked American diplomats in Cuba and China with a device that caused people to hear loud sounds and experience concussion-like brain damage. Now, doctors working with the attack victims may have figured out what it was: The medical team that examined 21 affected diplomats from Cuba made no mention of microwaves in its detailed report published in JAMA in March. But Douglas H. Smith, the study’s lead author and director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the...

I mentioned earlier today (yesterday BST) that I sought the Source. Here it is: That monument marks the official head of the River Thames, though in September after a long, dry summer, there isn't a lot else that would convince you. Still, boundaries and origins have always fascinated me, so I just had to see it. Naturally, the closest pub to the monument capitalizes on its notoriety: Also just as naturally, my trip to Kemble required a totally unanticipated hour and 20 minutes in Swindon, which...well...