Events

As someone who's had an online presence since 1983, I have learned a thing or two about online discourse. Principally, it's mostly crap. Most people know this. But the dangerous thing is, in the last few years, people have forgotten it's crap. Everyone gets so worked up about the specific meaningless thing someone else posts they forget that there is a clear pattern of discourse going back to the beginning of politics. The basic goal of the right is to consolidate wealth. The basic goal of the left is...

Could President Trump be not only a very stable genius, but a strategic one as well, for pulling American troops out of Syria ? I mean, given the obvious consequences of our pull-out (i.e., Russia and Turkey carving up Kurdistan), the alternative explanation is that the Situation Room this week looked a lot like Sir Bedevere explaining to King Arthur how the wooden rabbit trick would work. Maybe his 71-minute oration at his cabinet meeting yesterday could give us more information about his state of mind...

Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow retires next week after ten years in the job. Nine MPs want to succeed him: The victorious candidate will assume one of the grandest and most important jobs in politics — a position so ancient that it makes the prime ministership, dating from the 18th century, look like a recent development. Thomas Hungerford was the first to hold the speaker’s title, in 1377, although presiding officers were identified as far back as 1258, when Peter de Montfort is thought to...

The Chicago Architecture Foundation is sponsoring its annual Chicago Open House this weekend, so I visited a place I'd wondered about for years. I give you the Garfield-Clarendon Model Railroad: They're celebrating their 70th anniversary, meaning the direct-train control, wireless throttles, and digital boards probably weren't original parts of the layout. I had a model railroad for a few years as a kid. It looked nothing like this.

The Guardian gave a group of London teenagers five technologies from the distant past to see if they could use them: 1 Phone home… with a rotary dial telephone They recognise the old phone from movies (and from watching The Sweeney in media studies – I want to go to Mr Rushworth’s media studies classes). Do you have to call the operator first, wonders Jannugan? Is the operator even still there? But obviously they don’t know their numbers, although Jannugan knows his mother’s ends in 202. Hang on, he...

British PM Boris Johnson is now, I believe, 0 for 8 in votes in Commons as the chamber voted 322 to 306 this afternoon (London time) to force the government to delay Brexit until January: The prime minister will be legally obliged to request a Brexit delay at 11pm under the terms of the rebel Benn act, after the government lost the critical vote. It came during a historic Saturday sitting of parliament, which saw the PM adopt an emollient tone, as he implored MPs to throw their weight behind his deal....

Extinction Rebellion, a climate-change protest group, targeted three working-class Tube stops near the Canary Wharf financial district in east London this week. In doing so they've given their opponents a massive boost: The stations targeted by activists—Canning Town, Stratford, and Shadwell—are physically very close to the financial district of Canary Wharf. But they are a world removed from it. These stations serve some of the poorest areas not just in London, but in Western Europe. Most commuters...

The WTO approved a set of tariffs that the US can levy against the EU recently in retaliation for subsidies from EU governments to Airbus Industrie. These tariffs will now affect me personally, and I am displeased: [W]ith the Oct. 31 deadline for Brexit fast approaching, the Trump administration imposed 25 percent tariffs on a menu of goods including French wine, Italian cheese and — in a move that could drive a Scotsman to drink — single malt whisky. Whisky underpins the economy of Islay and much of...

Here are the news stories that filtered through today: Netflix released viewing figures as part of its quarterly report to shareholders. Guess what their most popular show is? The New Yorker reviewed Chef Iliana Regan's autobiography, and now I might have to buy it before my next dinner at Elizabeth. Given WeWork's declining fortunes and enormous lease liabilities, what will happen to New York's real estate market if WeWork dies? With the Chicago Teacher's Union on strike, Greg Hinz asks, who will get...

As Qatar prepares for the 2022 World Cup, climate change has pushed temperatures in its capital, Doha, above 50°C. Welcome to hell: Already one of the hottest places on Earth, Qatar has seen average temperatures rise more than 2°C above preindustrial times, the current international goal for limiting the damage of global warming. The 2015 Paris climate summit said it would be better to keep temperatures "well below" that, ideally to no more than 1.5°C. Over the past three decades, temperature increases...