Events

Chicago has microclimates. If you get within about 2 km of Lake Michigan on a hot day, you can feel it even if the wind is calm. Add a lake breeze and the cool zone can extend 10–15 km easily. It turns out, Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters and its Netatmo weather station sit just over 2 km from the lake (it's 2,170 meters to Foster Beach). O'Hare, Chicago's official weather station, is 21.5 km from the lakefront (in Winnetka, because Geometry!). I've seen days with stiff east winds (usually...

Just queuing a few things up to read at lunchtime: From tavern-style communion pizza and Malört to the horrific discovery that the Pope is a White Sox fan, Chicagoans have gone nuts for Leo XIV. Catholics everywhere are finally safe from ketchup with their Eucharist. Former US Supreme Court Justice David Souter has died, aged 85. He "pulled a Brennan" by drifting left during his term on the court, much to the annoyance of the Republicans who elevated him. Political scientists Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way...

As a devout atheist, I'm not especially concerned with the election this afternoon of Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, though I am tickled he's a South Sider from Chicago. (Next up: Malort for communion!) I'm less tickled that about the "deal" that the US and UK have reached on trade as it appears to be nothing more than "concepts of a plan" that leaves in place a 10% tax on UK goods. As Krugman explains, Nobody knows what will eventually come out of it, but we can be sure of one thing: It won’t lead to...

Cincinnati mayor Aftab Pureval (I) will face Republican Cory Bowman in the November election after the two won 83% and 13%, respectively, of yesterday's primary vote. Bowman is the half-brother of Vice President JD Vance, whose endorsement of Bowman appears to have led to Pureval's enormous vote total. When you're the least-popular vice president in history, no one wants your endorsement, dude. Also, today is the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany's surrender to the Allies in Reims, France. What that has...

Conductor and composer Matthew Aucoin suggests we call it "written music:" The unruly and elusive entity known as classical music does not sound like any one thing, and the sheer abundance of the tradition might invite the conclusion that trying to define it at all is a hopeless exercise. But that would be a mistake, especially at this moment. Like every other sector of cultural life, classical music has been roiled over the past decade by intense debates about the field’s ongoing lack of diversity...

The Economist is kidding only a little bit by pointing out that creativity and moderate drinking correlate strongly: Today the world sees fewer breakthroughs. Hollywood sustains itself on remakes or sequels, not originals. A recent blog by Peter Ruppert, a consultant, finds the same trend for music: “the pace of genuine sonic innovation has slowed dramatically”. A paper published in 2020 by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and colleagues concludes that new ideas are “harder to find”. Productivity...

The Chicago Park District periodically burns conservation areas throughout the city because the prairie we built the city on evolved with fire. Last fall, they burned some of the prairie-reclamation areas in Winnemac Park, close to my house: Here's the same area yesterday, clearly benefitting from the burn: And just because everyone loves her, here's a photo of Cassie enjoying the random pats and treats she got at Spiteful Brewing about two hours after we passed through the park: Happy Monday.

Radley Balko, who has spent his career examining police policy and law-enforcement mission creep, elucidates the latest authoritarian trolling from the White House: Donald Trump says he wants to “unleash” the police. The [latest executive order] is more virtue signaling than policy — more an expression of Trump’s mood than a serious proposal. And, when it comes to conventional crime, Trump’s mood is right where it’s always been: fearful, demagogic, and perpetually stuck in 1988. The key term in the...

The world has rightly reacted in horror to the OAFPOTUS's self-defeating tariff regime. But as economists Paul Krugman and Bobby Kogan point out, the tariffs are distracting us from the even more horrific Republican budget proposal: PAUL KRUGMAN: So, it’s been a pretty amazing hundred days, but almost all of my focus has been on tariffs and other things like DOGE and all of that. But meanwhile, there's a much more sort of conventional Republican plan of huge tax cuts and big benefit cuts. There is a...

Former Illinois governor George Ryan (R) died earlier today in hospice. He, like half of the Illinois governors who served in my lifetime, spent time in prison for corruption, stemming from a time when, as Secretary of State, he would issue commercial drivers licenses in exchange for bribes. The scandal went national when an unqualified driver crashed into a family car, killing six kids. He also single-handedly blocked Illinois from ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982, but as governor he didn't...