Events

The TV show's finale even got political commentator Ross Douthat to comment: Two of the most successful completed sagas of the last 20 years, Robin Hobb’s Farseer novels and Tad Williams’s “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn,” balance political machinations that would be at home in Shakespeare’s histories and larger world stories about the death and life of magic. And the promise of George R.R. Martin’s saga was that it might, in its somewhat pulpy way, offer the most successful integration yet, with a political...

Short answer: use their medieval beliefs against them: Ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel have held protests against the scheduling of the Eurovision Song Contest on the Jewish Sabbath. At one point, a small number of women held a counter protest, showing their bras. You see, Jewish crazies believe in modesty to the point where women can't even show their real hair in public (they wear wigs). Their rules also prohibit them from touching members of the opposite sex not related to them, leaving open the option...

As interesting as Game of Thrones has been, yesterday's news at City Hall actually has more relevance to the world we live in. Lori Lightfoot took office as our 56th mayor—and our first black, female mayor, and our first openly gay mayor: Lightfoot bluntly promised to restore integrity to a city government and City Council that has at times been hobbled by allegations against some of its highest-ranking members. Her fiery speech drew numerous standing ovations from a raucous crowd, but also potentially...

Megan Garber has an unexpected take on the series finale: As the series went on, though, it became more mistrustful of emotion—and of rage, above all. Dany is angry, and that, the implication goes, helps to explain her descent into tyranny. Cersei is angry, and that leads her to a series of political miscalculations. Jon, meanwhile, who has a nearly bottomless capacity for sadness but seems constitutionally incapable of rage? The show has long treated his easy equanimity, even more than his royal...

Last night HBO aired the series finale of Game of Thrones, the TV adaptation (and extension of) George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. After 73 episodes, perhaps a quarter-million deaths, and 4 years of screen time expanded over 9 years of our time, what have we got? I think we've got two distinctly different shows, and the second of them, starting with the 6th season, was distinctly less satisfying than the first. I'm not alone. Here are just a few of the critics on last night's finale: Spencer...

Yesterday evening, I needed to wear earmuffs and gloves when walking Parker because of the 7°C weather. Yes, it's the middle of May, but we've had a really screwy spring this year. Today I don't need gloves. Our official temperature bloomed from 8°C to 26°C in the past six hours. Even close to the lake, where I live, it's already warmer outside than inside—and I had the heat on briefly this morning! Today the forecast looks hot and humid, before temperatures plunge again Sunday night. Then hot again...

Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei died yesterday. He was 102. Internet sensation Grumpy Cat died Tuesday. She was 7. Comedic genius Tim Conway also died Tuesday. He was 85.

Federal judge Amit Mehta could not believe the arguments the president's lawyer, William Consovoy, made on Monday: Consovoy, a beefy former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, offered two related points: (A) Congress can’t issue a subpoena or otherwise probe a president unless it is doing so for a “legitimate legislative purpose.” (B) Any “legitimate legislative purpose” Congress could conceivably devise would be unconstitutional. As a result, Consovoy argued, Congress can’t investigate to see if a...

Though we'll probably talk about this week's news out of Mauna Loa for many years to come, other stories got to my inbox today: Chicago's budget deficit will hit $740m in 2020, the city's CFO announced less than a week before Lori Lightfoot takes office as our new mayor. Both MSNBC and Josh Marshall pin our escalating tensions with Iran right on John Bolton's butt. (Cap may have America's Ass, but Bolton is America's Arse.) Physicians believe a boy who died 50 years ago today was the country's first...

The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii reported that atmospheric carbon dioxide had reached 415 ppm on Friday: This is the first time in human history our planet's atmosphere has had more than 415ppm CO2.Not just in recorded history, not just since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Since before modern humans existed millions of years ago.We don't know a planet like this. https://t.co/azVukskDWr — Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) May 12, 2019 In poetic punctuation to that point, Arkhangelsk...