Events

On Monday, Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin (the one with phallic space ships) sent an all-female "crew" into low orbit for ten minutes, pretty much demonstrating everything wrong with 2020s America: Blue Origin's all-female crew, which included pop star Katy Perry, completed their trip into space Monday morning. Along with Perry, the crew included Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos' journalist fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, who is also a helicopter pilot. Speaking after touchdown, Perry said she brought a daisy...

The era between the end of World War II and now is an aberration in world history. At no other time have so many people enjoyed a middle-class existence, with most—at least in the OECD and adjacent countries—able to afford all of life's necessities, like a house, decent health care, adequate nutrition, and leisure time. This general prosperity is what people like the OAFPOTUS and the Clown Prince of X want to end, and for no other reason than they want more for themselves. The unprecedented attack on...

Welcome to stop #126 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Wizard Works Brewing, 231 E. Buffalo St., Milwaukee 4½ (of 5) stars Train line: Amtrak, Milwaukee Intermodal Station Time from Chicago: 89 minutesDistance from station: 900 m Once you find the door to the 19th-century office building housing this quirky magic-themed brewery, head down the stairs and grab a seat. My Brews Buddy and I enjoyed the place thoroughly, though we would prefer it had fewer TV screens. We shared a flight and went back...

Before I go through the stories from the last day about how we live in the stupidest timeline, here's a photo of the Milwaukee Intermodal Station I snapped heading to my return train on Friday: Elsewhere in the stupidest timeline, where maximizing corruption is the defining goal of the Republican Party: James Fallows takes us through Harvard's big "fuck you" to the OAFPOTUS's demands that the university install minders in its HR and academic departments, as does Josh Marshall. Jennifer Rubin reminds...

Welcome to stop #125 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: The Copper Turtle, 330 E. Menomonee St., Milwaukee 4 (of 5) stars Train line: Amtrak, Milwaukee Intermodal Station Time from Chicago: 89 minutesDistance from station: 1.3 km The Copper Turtle started as a microbrewery, and wants to continue making their three micro beers. That said, they want to be known more as a cocktail bar than as a brewery. Still, they brew on site, and their beers are pretty good. My Brews Buddy had the Lottie Dottie...

Welcome to stop #124 on the Brews and Choos project. Distillery: Central Standard Crafthouse, 230 E. Clybourn St., Milwaukee 4½ (of 5) stars Train line: Amtrak, Milwaukee Intermodal Station Time from Chicago: 89 minutesDistance from station: 1 km Welcome to Milwaukee, Chicago's stepchild to the north. A relatively inexpensive trip from Chicago Union Station to Milwaukee Intermodal takes a bit under an hour and a half and drops you a short walk from 11 breweries and distilleries. My Brews Buddy signed up...

Cassie and I are taking a moment after a visit to Horner Park, where she met a bunch of new friends: Note that the woman in the photo is not the beagle's human, which the beagle finds irrelevant if she can get her snoot deeper into that bag. We have stopped for a moment to enjoy a beer (Hazy Sunday IPA) and crack-soaked popcorn at Burning Bush near the park. I feel no urgency about anything at the moment. It's a good day.

I'm absolutely bushed, so no Brews & Choos reviews from Milwaukee yet. If I get enough sleep tonight, and if I'm supremely effective in the morning, I'll start posting them tomorrow. There are four, after all, and only one of them is "eh."

With the bare minimum of planning and no time between all my meetings and the train leaving, I am happy to report that my Brews Buddy and I are on the Borealis heading north. For more on our destination, I recommend this lecture from Prof Cooper. Tomorrow I have an all-day Euchre tournament, so reviews from Milwaukee will start Sunday.

I may have dodged a virus this week, though I'm not 100% sure yet. I have a lot more confidence in my health than the world has in the OAFPOTUS, however. And the news today doesn't change that at all: Radley Balko, tongue firmly in cheek, satirizes the Republican Party in a way I will not spoil for you. (His takedown of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, made me guffaw.) Yascha Mounk warns that the OAFPOTUS's irrational and malignantly stupid attack on the very things that made America great in...