Events

A derecho blasted through Iowa and Illinois yesterday, blasting 120 km/h winds through Chicago and spawning at least one tornado two neighborhoods over from me: Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed, meteorologists said it’s possible a tornado touched down in Rogers Park on the Far North Side, before heading out over Lake Michigan, where the funnel became a waterspout. The derecho blew in from Iowa, where winds surpassed 100 mph. It swept east across Illinois and into Indiana, with winds of 65 to...

Josh Marshall has a good summary of why things suck for parents, kids, and teachers right now: But the plan [New York] city and most of [New York] state has come up with shows how limited this can be and how much we’ve made a fetish of in-school instruction. There are two big reasons to have in-school instruction. The first and most important is the educational, social and emotional development and well-being of children. The second is the impact on the economy. Many parents can’t work if their children...

Welcome to stop #28 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Half Acre Beer Co., Balmoral Brewery, 2048 W Balmoral Ave., ChicagoTrain line: Union Pacific North, Ravenswood (Also CTA Brown Line, Damen)Time from Chicago: 16 minutes (Zone B)Distance from station: 1.7 km (1.6 km from CTA) Half Acre actually operates two locations: its original brewpub on Lincoln Ave., and its newer and much larger brewery/restaurant/beer garden just south of Rosehill Cemetery. Both are on the Brews and Choos list, but the...

A friend I met just last November died on Friday night at 32. She owned Heirloom Books in Chicago's Edgewater community, one of the last independent used-book shops in the neighborhood. (Always a "shop;" never a "store.") She'd only recently adopted a kitten, Pilar, who I met a few weeks ago. Her father posted on Facebook that she died "peacefully but unexpectedly...from complications arising from a long-standing illness which she fought valiantly against over many years, but which few people were aware...

Welcome to stop #29 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Sketchbook Brewing Co. Skokie Taproom, 4901 Main St., SkokieTrain line: CTA Yellow Line, Dempster-SkokieTime from Chicago: 48 minutesDistance from station: 900 m I have gone to Sketchbook Brewing in Evanston for years, so naturally I made a special trip to their Skokie Taproom for its grand opening last Friday. We had perfect weather, social distancing, hand sanitizer, and good beer. The brewery occupies the front part of a 1950s-era...

I took the Mini out for a spin yesterday evening, and got a couple of cool shots: Enjoy.

Writing for The Week, David Linker lays out the problem confronting the Republican Party even if they get a solid thumping this November: [Y]es, it would be very good for the Republican Party of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, Louie Gohmert, Devin Nunes, and all the rest of them to be leveled to the ground so a wholly new party — a more reasonable, responsible, principled, and honorable party — can be built in its place. There's just one difficulty with the plan: It...

I admire the New York Times for digging into how our pandemic response was so much worse than every other rich country, but ultimately, we already knew: First, the United States faced longstanding challenges in confronting a major pandemic. It is a large country at the nexus of the global economy, with a tradition of prioritizing individualism over government restrictions. That tradition is one reason the United States suffers from an unequal health care system that has long produced worse medical...

New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed suit to dissolve the National Rifle Association: The lawsuit sets up a legal confrontation that could take years to play out and will leave the 148-year-old N.R.A. — long the nation’s most influential gun-rights lobby but recently hobbled by financial woes and infighting — fighting for its survival. The attorney general’s office previously presided over the dissolution of President Trump’s scandal-marred charitable foundation, but the N.R.A., with more...

Casualties continue to mount along with accusations of official malfeasance from Tuesday evening's blast at the Port of Beirut: Lebanon's President, Michel Aoun, blamed the detonation on 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that he said had been stored unsafely at a warehouse in the port. A similar amount of the chemical arrived on a Moldovan-flagged cargo ship, the MV Rhosus, which docked in Beirut in 2013 after suffering technical problems while sailing from Georgia to Mozambique. The Rhosus was...