Events

Parker's surgeon just called. She had no difficulty removing the plate from his leg and she got the fatty cyst out of his neck without complications. She also identified the screw that had hidden the infection from his immune system and has sent it in for culture, but she suspects it's a run-of-the-mill bacterium that, absent the screw, his body would barely have noticed. He'll be a little wobbly for a day or so and he'll have to wear his cone for two weeks, but the surgery wasn't nearly as invasive as...

American diplomats injured in Cuba in 2016 reported hearing strange noises before their symptoms set in. Apparently they heard crickets: [W]hen the biologist Alexander Stubbs heard a recording, uploaded by the Associated Press, he heard not mechanical bugs, but biological ones. He realized that the noise sounded like the insects he used to hear while doing fieldwork in the Caribbean. Together with Fernando Montealegre-Z, an expert on entomological acoustics, Stubbs scoured an online database of insect...

Oh, dog. As I mentioned earlier, Parker has developed an infection around the implants in his leg. In itself this isn't life-threatening, but it is pretty uncomfortable, especially when stuff oozes out of his leg. So, tomorrow he's having the implants out. And while he's under anesthetic, the surgeon will also remove a fatty cyst from his neck—also not dangerous, just uncomfortable. The surgeon, his regular vet, and I all agree that this is Parker's last surgery. No matter how healthy he seems right...

James Fallows argues that television networks have clear precedents as well as unprecedented reasons not to air President Trump's speech tonight: The challenge for the news media was to “make the important interesting,” rather than to search for the purely interesting. Car-crash footage, or the last seconds of a sudden-death playoff game, will always be more eye-catching than reports on a drought, or on sexual-harassment patterns, or emergency-room standards, or a million other topics. But things that...

President Trump's administration had no idea what a government shutdown would do until they started looking into it after shutting down the government: Two devastating reports in the Washington Post over the weekend detail the horrifying scope of their ignorance. The administration did not realize that 38 million Americans lose their food stamps under a shutdown, nor did it know that thousands of tenants would face eviction without assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It’s...

Over the weekend, Sears Holdings Corp. started making preparations for winding down the business, after chairman and company killer Eddie Lampert's bid fell apart: The iconic retailer started laying the groundwork for a liquidation after meetings Friday in which its advisers weighed the merits of a $4.4 billion bid by Lampert’s hedge fund to buy Sears as a going concern, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. If the 125-year-old retailer does die in...

My friend's mutt, finding happiness and interesting lighting in Durham, N.C.: I'll have a Parker update Tuesday afternoon. Stay tuned.

The semi-annual Chicago Sunrise Chart is up. Enjoy.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2019 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:32 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:51 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:11 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:09 9 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 14th Earliest sunset until Oct 29th 06:13 17:51 11:37 10 Mar Daylight saving time...

Slate explains how Chicago's Deep Tunnel project has relieved the city of the worst effects of rainstorms—but just isn't adequate for the new, wetter climate: The history of Chicago can be told as a series of escapes from wastewater, each more ingenious than the last. Before the Civil War, entire city blocks were lifted on hydraulic jacks to allow for better drainage, and the first tunnel to bring in potable water from the middle of Lake Michigan was completed in 1867. In 1900, engineers reversed the...