Events

Choral board meeting followed by chorus rehearsal: all on Zoom, and as president and generally techy guy, I'm hosting. After a full day of work and a 5 km walk. Whew. So what's new? David Corn advises the Democratic Party to "go nuclear." Greg Sargent views the malarkey from Republican senators and the president as unmasking their "vile game." The CDC abruptly withdrew guidance warning about the airborne spread of Covid-19, which could not have more obviously come from political interference. Democratic...

Welcome to stop #35 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Two Brothers Roundhouse, 205 N. Broadway, AuroraTrain line: BNSF, Aurora Time from Chicago: 81 minutes (Zone H)Distance from station: At the station In 1856, the nascent Chicago & Aurora Railroad built the first roundhouse in Illinois in the small city of Aurora. It served as a locomotive shop and storage facility until 1974, then abandoned, even as it won a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. Flash forward to 2011 when...

In just the last week, three iconic Chicago restaurants have announced permanent closures: Southport Lanes, Fat Willy's Rib Shack, and Lawry's The Prime Rib. I'm having beer at Southport Lanes this afternoon and ribs for dinner Thursday. Lawry's, I'll see you before the end of the year.

The official death toll in the US for Covid-19 has passed a milestone Deborah Birx predicted back in March: In the predawn hours of March 30, Dr. Deborah Birx stepped in front of the camera on the White House lawn and made an alarming prediction about the coronavirus, which had, by then, killed fewer than 3,000 people in the United States. "If we do things together, well, almost perfectly, we can get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities," Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task...

Yesterday evening I wrote that the only appropriate response to the Republican Senate putting another Federalist Society pretty boy on the Supreme Court (or, really, anyone other than Merrick Garland) would be to revisit 28 USC §1, i.e., passing a simple statute to increase the size of the court and thereby dilute its right-wing majority. This was also Josh Marshall's first thought: We are here because of the Republican party’s increasing unwillingness to accept limits on political action. To up the...

The Notorious RBG died at her home earlier today: The cause was complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer, the Supreme Court said. Justice Ginsburg’s pointed and powerful dissenting opinions, usually speaking for all four, attracted growing attention as the court turned further to the right. A law student, Shana Knizhnik, anointed her the Notorious R.B.G., a play on the name of the Notorious B.I.G., a famous rapper who was Brooklyn-born, like the justice. Soon the name, and Justice Ginsburg’s image...

Watching Amazon's 2017 anthology series Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, I particularly enjoyed how many episodes they filmed right here in Chicago. "Real Life" filmed mainly around Lake St and the river. "The Father Thing" takes place mainly in The Villa, a niche hidden away in Irving Park. And it took me all of 5 minutes to locate a shooting location by the Damen El stop in "Safe and Sound." Of course, as most of the stories take place 20 minutes into the future, some of the locations have digital...

As Covid-19 cases rose in large cities, people started moving to the suburbs in larger numbers. Crain's reports that the combination of fear, downtown office closures, and low interest rates caused home sales nearly to double in 14 Chicago-area suburbs. Barrington, a wealthy village of horse barns and huge houses, saw the largest number of home sales last month, with Lake Forest (a similar place) close behind. Amanda Mull, writing in The Atlantic, sees this as a big gamble: When we talk about people...

Working from home with a gigabit Internet connection has at least one major perk: TV on in the background. I've gone through a lot of it in the last six months. The Expanse, Tales from the Loop, Wyonna Earp, Warrior Nun, Upload, and The Umbrella Academy were all worth watching. Some of them even have new seasons coming out soon. On the "return to the office full-time" front, we probably have another six months to wait. The New York Times has a rundown of the 92 Covid-19 vaccines currently under...

Talk-show host Stephen Colbert has set up a website called Better Know a Ballot where you can check on the voting requirements for your state. He's producing videos for each state (starting with North Carolina) to explain the rules. That's the bright spot of joy for you today. Here are other...spots...of something: The president answered questions from "undecided" voters at a town hall on Tuesday, and naturally lied almost every time he spoke. The Washington Post lists his most egregious falsehoods....