Events

A total failure to imagine a likely risk scenario has lost the State of Washington possibly hundreds of millions of dollars to thieves who defrauded the state unemployment agency: Employment Security Department Commissioner Suzi LeVine says the names of potentially thousands of Washingtonians, many who remain employed, were used to make fake unemployment claims and defraud the state of hundreds of millions of dollars. The state was hit especially hard in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, as...

Author Franklin Schneider, who wrote a book about getting fired from 13 jobs in 10 years, thinks the president is begging someone to fire him: We didn’t need insider exposés about “executive time” spent shouting at the TV to know that Trump hates being president. It’s there in every seething tweet, every prickly exchange with reporters, every shrug of a coronavirus briefing. He despises everything about Washington — the modesty, the expertise, the functionaries around him who have the temerity to do...

Since January 2019, Chicago has had only two months with above-average sunshine, and in both cases we only got 10% more than average. This year we're ticking along about 9% below, with no month since July 2019 getting above 50% of possible sunshine. In other news: Former White House Butler Roosevelt Jerman, who served from 1957 to 2012, died of Covid-19 at age 91. One wonders, if the current White House had acted more propitiously, would Jerman have lived longer? Researchers suggest yes, if we'd locked...

I bought my first CD on 8 May 1988, a little more than 32 years ago: Mozart's Mass in C Major K.317, performed by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Chorus under Eugen Jochum. I've bought a few more since then. And not all of them have gotten the love they deserve. So, since I'm home anyway, I decided two weeks ago (on the 8th, no surprise) to listen to all of them again. After two weeks I've gotten up to #41, Beethoven's "Emperor" concerto, by the Vienna Philharmonic with director Hans Knappertsbusch and...

Briefly: Illinois surpassed 100,000 cases of Covid-19 as of today, but all four regions of the state remain on target to move into phase 3 (think: outdoor restaurant seating) a week from Friday. Josh Marshall says "wear your damn mask." Jessica Goldstein wonders when we'll mourn the dead? Another unit test is taking forever. I turned on "long running tests" so I knew it wouldn't be quick.

You have to see these photos of the dark Sears Tower against the Chicago skyline—a metaphor for 2020 bar none. Also: The Chicago Teachers Union has sued the Chicago Public Schools and Betsy DeVos over the treatment of special-education students during the lockdown. Alexandra Petri imagines the sad, lonely life of a potato guardian. Three Floyds has closed their brewpub indefinitely, another sign of the apocalypse. President Trump really does believe his own quackery, though hydroxychloroquine as a dog...

So far—and keep in mind, we're only 2/3 done with the month—Chicago has had more precipitation this May than in any previous May, with 216 mm total. It's interesting to note that 2019 and 2018 were also the wettest Mays ever, with 210 mm and 208 mm respectively. In Northwest Michigan, the record rainfall caused a pair of dams to break, flooding the town of Midland under 2.75 m of water. The Lake Michigan-Huron system continues at record levels for the fifth month in a row, with no sign of receding....

I think today is Tuesday, the first day of my 10th week working from home. That would make today...March 80th? April 49th? Who knows. It is, however, just past lunchtime, and today I had shawarma and mixed news: Carbon emissions have declined 17% year-over-year, thanks to Covid-19-related slowdowns reducing petroleum consumption. (See? It's not all bad news.) Crain's Chicago Business reviews how businesses rate Mayor Lori Lightfoot's first year in office. And their editorial board says we should "start...

Long day, with meetings until 8:45pm and the current sprint ending tomorrow at work, so I'll read most of these after the spring review: Tara Smith warns about the unholy alliance of anti-vaxers and Covid-19 quarantine protesters. Libby Watson calls it a "deranged civil religion." You think President Trump firing State Department Inspector General Steve Linick was about walking Mike Pompeo's dogs? Uh, no. It was about the $8 bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia that Linick was about to expose. Why is Trump...

On 18 May 1980, forty years ago today, the Washington-state volcano Mt St Helens exploded, killing dozens of people who had been warned to evacuate days earlier: I was 150 miles away on May 18, 1980, when Mount St. Helens blew, but my bed shook and the windows on my Oregon A-frame rattled. I rushed to my radio station and its clacking Associated Press wire machine, and pulled up a pile of wire copy from the floor. The reports coming in from southwest Washington state were hard to believe.... Despite two...