Events

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' White Album: There’s something about The White Album that invites listeners to mess around with it. Joan Didion stole its title for her 1979 essay collection, an elegy for the dreams of 1960s California. The producer Danger Mouse chopped it to pieces and recombined the fragments with vocals from Jay-Z’s The Black Album to create his 2004 mash-up The Grey Album. The jam band Phish covered all 30 songs on stage on Halloween night, 1994. Charles Manson...

When I'm explaining software designs, I'll often say things like, "I don't care if the data comes from SQL, NOSQL, or a squirrel..." It turns out, Frontier Airlines cares very much: A passenger was removed from a Frontier Airlines flight late Tuesday when she attempted to fly with her “emotional support” squirrel and then refused to get off the plane when she was told no, according to the airline. A Frontier spokesman said in a statement that the passenger had alerted the airline that she would be...

Greg Sargent points out the obvious reality of who the president is really looking out for: The suggestion here is that we are now seeing what “America first” really looks like. That is, when Trump says “America first,” he means it. But this concedes too much. In an inadvertent but pernicious way, it supports Trump’s preferred framing of his presidency. In this case and many others, Trump is not being “frank” about his real priorities, and he is not putting America first. He’s putting his own naked...

Some questions: Why did 16 members of my party threaten to make a Republican Speaker of the House? Why didn't the White House Staff Secretary prevent a ridiculous statement about the Khashoggi killing from going out? Is it because many of the most-qualified rats have already jumped ship? Why don't builders think about how their buildings will come down when they're putting them up? How can we fix our country's broken immigration system? Can Chicago's Greektown survive? How badly have Uber and Lyft hurt...

This year the WHCA won't have a comedian or the president at its annual dinner. Instead, historian Ron Chernow will speak. Can't think why: Go back a few minutes to hear the whole thing. I'm highlighting that passage because, don't forget, two days later Osama bin Laden was dead—because two hours earlier, President Obama gave the final order to have him killed. Leadership.

Journalist Kelly Weill, writing for the Daily Beast, went to a flat-earth convention: Thousands of years after ancient Greeks began referencing Earth as a sphere in mathematical proofs, people who believe in a flat Earth have become a movement. They’ve found their voice in the disinformation age, fueled by YouTube videos. For true believers, it’s more than just a conspiracy theory. It’s whole world view, a level plane onto which hucksters, trolls, and Christian fundamentalists can insert their own...

Longtime (and I mean, longtime) reader DB sent me James Geary's eloquent essay on the value of puns: There is no sharp boundary splitting the wit of the scientist, inventor, or improviser from that of the artist, the sage, or the jester. The creative experience moves seamlessly from the “Aha!” of scientific discovery to the “Ah” of aesthetic insight to the “Haha” of the pun and the punch line. “Comic discovery is paradox stated—scientific discovery is paradox resolved,” [novelist and cultural critic...

Why is a white, gay, male, naturalized American the only journalist I have come across saying Theresa May deserves a lot more credit for persisting in the face of unrelenting male hostility? Sullivan: I don’t know how else to describe Theresa May’s grueling slog toward the least worst Brexit possible. The awkward prime minister is still standing upright, though maybe not for much longer. In this respect, I’m surprised more feminists haven’t come to May’s defense. May’s bourgeois Toryism, like Margaret...

In this past election cycle, I gave money to eight candidates and two committees. Here's my record: Candidate Race Result Cindy Axne IA-3 Won Sean Casten IL-6 Won Brendan Kelly IL-12 Lost Claire McCaskill Senate - MO Lost Bill Nelson Senate - FL Lost Beto O'Rourke Senate - TX Lost Jacky Rosen Senate - NV Won Harley Rouda CA-48 Won DCCC US House Won DSCC US Senate Lost (Bold text means the parties flipped.) So, not bad. Half won, four half lost, and one is still being recounted. But really, five of seven...

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures voted earlier today to ditch the platinum-iridium prototype kilogram in favor of a value of mass based on Planck's constant. The Post explains: Since the 19th century, scientists have based their definition of the fundamental unit of mass on a physical object — a shining platinum iridium cylinder stored in a locked vault in the bowels of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) in Sevres, France. A kilogram was equal to the heft of this...