Events

Back in May I started listening to every CD I own, in the order that I bought them, starting with Eugen Jochum conducting Mozart's Mass in C-Major, K317 (purchased in May 1988). I'm up to July 1989 now, and as I write this, I'm playing The Mama's and the Papa's [sic] If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears (1967). This follows The Beatles' With The Beatles (1963) and Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace (1983). And then it goes sideways. Next up: Haydn's Piano Concerto #11 (1781), and Josquin's "Missa L'Homme...

Today's interesting and notable news stories: This week marks the 25th anniversary of Chicago's deadly heat wave in July 1995, during which 700 people died and we hit a record 41°C with a 52°C heat index. Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman sees the Trump Administration's corruption as far worse than Nixon's. In a recent interview with CNN, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos repeated, without coherently explaining the how or why of it, that children should go back to school this fall. DeVos'...

Lake Michigan continues to set records for high water levels, with yesterday's 177.5 m being more than 90 cm above the long-term average: Here is the scene yesterday at what used to be the Belmont Harbor dog beach: Using Google Earth, it's striking to see the change from a more-average April 2015 to the near-record-levels (but still lower than today) in October 2019: The harbor has even taken part of the pedestrian path running along its edge: At least the weather yesterday turned out great, giving me...

For the first time since reporting its first Covid-19 death on March 11th, New York City yesterday reported zero confirmed or probable deaths from the virus: The milestone came Sunday in initial data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. New York State reported five deaths statewide on Sunday but didn’t specify where those fatalities occured. The highest number of deaths statewide was reported on April 9, at 799. New York City has reported a total of 18,670 confirmed Covid-19...

Yesterday, Florida reported 15,300 new cases of Covid-19, handily breaking the one-day record for new cases we set waaaay back in early April. We've now passed 70,000 new cases nationally in one day (another record), and 230,370 new cases worldwide (another record). We could lose control of this situation completely any day now--as Florida already has. And yet, " 'There was no justification to not move forward' with the state's reopening in May, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday, according to NBC...

Who could forget? Rolling Stone explains: Forty [one] years ago this evening, a doubleheader at Chicago’s Comiskey Park devolved into a fiery riot when crazed fans stormed the field as part of anti-disco promotional event dubbed Disco Demolition Night. The whole thing was the brainchild of disc jockey Steve Dahl, who dressed up like the general of an anti-disco army and called his followers “The Insane Coho Lips.” Dahl thought the demonstration would consist of simply blowing up some disco records on...

The pardon power granted in Article II of the Constitution exists so that the President can save people from true miscarriages of justice. Well, originally, anyway. Now it exists to save President Trump's friends from their own misdeeds, as demonstrated once again last night: President Trump has said he learned lessons from President Richard M. Nixon’s fall from grace, but in using the power of his office to keep his friend and adviser Roger J. Stone Jr. out of prison he has now crossed a line that even...

So many months and so many lies ago, the President of the United States doctored a weather map with a Sharpie so that he wouldn't be wrong about saying a hurricane was going to hit Alabama. Yes, he'd rather look stupid than incorrect. But OK, whatever. Today the Dept of Commerce Inspector General released a 107-page report (!) on the incident, which must have cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff time and effort, not to mention it still makes the president look stupid. TPM has more...

Tom Friedman gives Joe Biden some good advice: First, Biden should declare that he will take part in a debate only if Trump releases his tax returns for 2016 through 2018. Biden has already done so, and they are on his website. Trump must, too. No more gifting Trump something he can attack while hiding his own questionable finances. And second, Biden should insist that a real-time fact-checking team approved by both candidates be hired by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates — and that 10...

I was in meetings almost without break from 10am until just a few minutes ago, so a few things have piled up in my inbox: Writing in the Washington Post, Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermeule explains why conservative justices vote with liberals more than the reverse (tl;dr: our system of government has a well-known and intentional liberal bias). NBC's Jonathan Allen calls the president's re-election campaign "desperate." The Mayor's Office in Chicago has put out a 100-page plan for how we can repair...