Events

No, I don't mean Kenny Rogers, who died last night at age 83. I mean that Royal Dutch Airlines KLM has decided to remove all their 747s from service nine months early because of the pandemic: The current date of the final flight is March 26, though even that date could get moved up if more flight cancellations ensue. Generally speaking, fleet retirements are met with large fanfare. The last two major airlines to retire the 747-400, United and Delta, both in 2017, had large send-off parties and several...

Starting tomorrow at 5pm, through April 7th, Illinois will be on a "stay-at-home" order: Residents can still go to the grocery stores, put gas in their cars, take walks outside and make pharmacy runs, the governor said at a Friday afternoon news conference. All local roads, including the interstate highways and tollways, will remain open to traffic, as well. “For the vast majority of you already taking precautions, your lives will not change very much,” Pritzker said. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said “now is...

I'm trying to get my mind around a Conservative government announcing this a few minutes ago: The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced the government will pay the wages of British workers to keep them in jobs as the coronavirus outbreak escalates. In an unprecedented step, Sunak said the state would pay grants covering up to 80% of the salary of workers kept on by companies, up to a total of £2,500 per month, just above the median income. “We are starting a great national effort to protect jobs,” he...

Welcome to stop #23 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Stockholm's, 306 W State St., GenevaTrain line: Union Pacific West, GenevaTime from Chicago: 67 minutes (Zone H)Distance from station: 800 m Penrose may have been the first pure-play brewery in Geneva, but Stockholm's, which opened on 5th July 2002, was the first place to brew beer there since prohibition. According to Mike Olesen, the owner, back in 2002 "it was hard to get people to try the beer," so he opened a restaurant instead of a...

I have tons of experience working from home, but historically I've balanced that by going out in the evenings. The pandemic has obviously cut that practice down to zero. Moreover, the village of Oak Park will start shelter-in-place measures tomorrow, so I expect Chicago to do the same in the next couple of days. The Oak Park order seems reasonable: stay home except for essentials like food and medicine, stay two meters away from other people, it's OK to walk your dog, and so on. Since I'm already doing...

Apollo Chorus assistant director Cody Michael Bradley has put out a series of "Quarantunes" to keep us musical through the social distancing phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's installment was the old Joe Dassin song "Les Champs-Élysées." New lyrics immediately sprang to mind. Voilà: Je m'baladais sur l'avenue, le coeur ouvert à l'inconnuJ'avais envie de dire bonjour à n'importe quiMais tous les gens, et tous les autres les interdits d'aller dehorsDonc on peut pas dire quelques mots pour deux...

Today's news: President Trump claims he knew COVID-19 was a pandemic all along, even though he had a strangely ineffective way of showing it. COVID-19 has caused a food security crisis as entire industries lay off vulnerable workers. The University of Illinois has cancelled graduation, devastating thousands of seniors. The World Health Organisation recommends avoiding Ibuprofen to treat COVID-19 symptoms; use paracetamol instead. Bob Cesca in Slate asks, "Why do we keep electing Republicans? They're no...

Actually, things seem to have quieted down. Bars and restaurants in Illinois closed last night at 9pm, and my company has moved to mandatory work-from-home, so things could not be quieter for me. I'm also an introvert with a dog and gigabit Internet, meaning I have a need to leave my house several times a day and something to do inside. (I'm also working, and in fact cracked a difficult nut yesterday that made today very productive.) Outside of my house: New Republic's Nick Martin asks, why should we...

Welcome to stop #22 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Penrose Brewing, 509 Stevens Street, GenevaTrain line: Union Pacific West, GenevaTime from Chicago: 67 minutes (Zone H)Distance from station: 1.4 km Geneva used to be the end of the line. It's two counties over from Chicago, and on the western edge of the world. But the historic district around the train station has tons of cute houses and two pretty good breweries (with another one coming soon). Penrose opened on 9th March 2014, when a guy...

The Dow Industrial Average index of 30 blue-chip stocks dropped almost 3,000 points today, erasing almost all the gains the index made since President Trump's inauguration. This comes on the first business day after the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates to near zero, and the CDC issued new guidance on avoiding groups of 50 or more for the next 8 weeks. Related stories, just from today: Josh Marshall reminds us that we held elections during the Civil War and two World Wars, so resist any efforts to...