Events

Happy May Day! Or m'aidez? Hard to know for sure right now. The weather in Chicago is sunny and almost the right temperature, and I have had some remarkable productivity at work this week, so in that respect I'm pretty happy. But I woke up this morning to the news that Ravinia has cancelled its entire 2020 season, including a performance of Bernstein's White House Cantata that featured my group, the Apollo Chorus of Chicago. This is the first time Ravinia has done so since 1935. If only that were...

Congratulations! You've made it to the end of April. This month has felt like one of the longest years of my life, and probably yours. So as we head into May, here's what the last few hours of April have wrought: Yesterday, we found out that US GDP had declined 4.8% in the first quarter. Today, we found out another 3.6 million people filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total to 30 million. The worst economy in a decade has become the "worst in our lifetime." The New York City subway will halt...

Security guru Bruce Schneier says Zoom has cleaned up its act a lot, judging by recent surveys of video conferencing apps by the NSA and Mozilla: The company has done a lot of work addressing previous security concerns. It still has a bit to go on end-to-end encryption. Matthew Green looked at this. Zoom does offer end-to-end encryption if 1) everyone is using a Zoom app, and not logging in to the meeting using a webpage, and 2) the meeting is not being recorded in the cloud. That's pretty good, but the...

Thanks, Obama! No, really. The countries that don't pity us are laughing their asses off. This video from a Chinese satire program sums it up nicely: China: We discovered a new virus.America: So what?China: It's DangerousAmerica: It's only a FluChina: Wear a MaskAmerica: Don't wear a Mask... pic.twitter.com/Qxugv8z73J — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) April 30, 2020 Josh Marshall is outraged—at the Trump Administration: [The video] is certainly self-serving from the Chinese perspective. But big picture...

The Hulu biopic "Mrs America" gives you the founding matron of the modern Republican Party, in all her crazy: It tells the story of the 1970s battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that pitted feminists such as Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale), Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) and Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba) against a woman named Phyllis Schlafly who would become the godmother of modern conservatism. Schlafly, who is portrayed with icy hauteur by the sublime Cate Blanchett, was a walking paradox: This...

I have gone to North Center Ribfest since moving back to the city in 2008. Until 2018 I even brought Parker most years, when he could walk 60 blocks as easily as I can. (Now he has trouble walking four.) I also attended the smaller, less-well-run Windy City Ribfest a couple of times. The Chamber for Uptown just cancelled this year's Windy City Ribfest, and the North Center Chamber of Commerce cancelled their Ribfest two weeks ago. In honor of both events, I will have full slabs on both weekends (June...

A small-town Republican Illinois State Representative sued in a small-town State court to have Governor Pritzker's stay-at-home order overturned—for himself, personally: The ruling by Clay County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney came in a lawsuit filed by Bailey, a Republican from the small town of Xenia, which challenged Pritzker’s authority to issue extended stay-at-home orders under the state’s Emergency Management Act. In seeking the injunction April 23, Bailey asked the judge to find that the...

The only president this country has right now massively trolled my party and my state today: As talk in Washington has swiftly moved to the next coronavirus relief package, President Donald Trump on Monday questioned whether federal taxpayers should provide money of “poorly run” states and cities run by Democrats, specifically citing Illinois. “Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed...

In one of his funniest jokes to date, President Trump Tweeted last night that his daily press conferences aren't "worth the time & effort:" What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately. They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2020 As usual, he said something that was...

James Fallows: Reporters from the Washington Post quoted Dara Kass, of Columbia University Medical Center, on the difference between this and Trump’s previous, now-discredited advice that people start taking a certain kind of pill: “The difference between this and the chloroquine [pills] is that somebody could go right away to their pantry and start swallowing bleach. They could go to their medicine cabinet and swallow isopropyl alcohol,” Kass said. “A lot of people have that in their homes. There’s an...