Events

Three reports of deaths today, two of them institutional. First, the one with the most relevance to me personally, one of the people most responsible for my sense of humor, died yesterday at 91: Norton Juster, the celebrated children’s author who has died at 91, stumbled into literature much as his most famous hero, Milo, stumbles into the marvelous world of wordplay and ad­ven­ture in the classic 1961 volume “The Phantom Tollbooth.” They were bored and entirely unsuspecting of the wonders that awaited...

As I mentioned in my post about Hailstorm Brewing that went out earlier today, you can have an excellent brewery with a TV-free taproom within 1500 meters of a Metra station and still qualify for the Brews and Choos project only on special dispensation. Because wow, getting from the Metra station to Hailstorm (and by extension, when I go later this spring, to Soundgrowler) might kill you. Here's the path from the Hickory Creek Metra stop to Brothership Brewing: It's short (just under a kilometer), along...

Welcome to stop #40 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Hailstorm Brewing, 8060 W 186th St., Tinley ParkTrain line: Rock Island, Tinley-80thTime from Chicago: 38 minutes (Zone E)Distance from station: 1.7 km The tl;dr on Hailstorm: Great beer, difficult location. I'll start with the beer. Since Hailstorm doesn't do flights, I only tried two of their 20-or-so selections, the Cumulus Hazy IPA (6.3%), and the Chasin' Waves West Coast IPA (7.5%). The Cumulus had delightful Citra flavors, with...

The CDC just released guidance on how vaccinated people should behave. It doesn't seem too surprising, but it also doesn't suggest we will all go back to the world of 2019 any time soon. In other news: Washington Post global opinions editor Karen Attah likens living in Texas right now to "an exercise in survival." The New York Times looks at where US Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) came from, without explicitly telling him to go back there. Crain's Chicago Business columnist Greg Hinz outlines what Chicago...

Welcome to stop #39 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Brothership Brewing, 18781 S 90th Ave, MokenaTrain line: Rock Island, Hickory CreekTime from Chicago: 43 minutes (Zone F)Distance from station: 1.0 km Brian Willig and partners opened Brothership Brewing on 22 February 2020, which says a lot about their beer. It's that good. I started with a standard flight, but Emily Willig (Brian's wife) gave me very small samples of their two special brews as well. From left to right: the There Goes Gravity...

It was 40 years ago today that Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time: Over the previous 19 years, Cronkite had established himself not only as the nation's leading newsman but as "the most trusted man in America," a steady presence during two decades of social and political upheaval. Cronkite had reported from the European front in World War II and anchored CBS' coverage of the 1952 and 1956 elections, as well as the 1960 Olympics. He took over as the network's premier news anchor in April of...

I read three things to reinforce this today. First, National Geographic acknowledges the global mental health crisis, and how we're procrastinating more as a result: People don’t necessarily procrastinate because they are lazy. Procrastination has roots in our evolutionary development, with two key parts of the brain vying for control. “Procrastination is an emotion-focused coping strategy,” says Tim Pychyl, a psychology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and author of Solving the...

I'm once more back in my downtown office, and today spotted one of my co-workers: an IT guy who's been here the whole time. I didn't see him Monday because he works on a different floor, and management discourages us from leaving our own these days. But like seeing a crocus sticking out of the snow, saying hello to another human being at work felt like a sign of spring, especially since it's Day 350 since the pandemic first sent everyone home. And because in the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns...

A local Vietnamese restaurant—only a few blocks from me, in fact—had to pay $700,000 in back wages to its workers after a Department of Labor investigation that ended in October: Tank Noodle has been forced to pay nearly $700,000 in back wages after making some of its employees work only for tips, according to the U.S. Deptartment of Labor. The popular Vietnamese restaurant at 4953 N. Broadway withheld wages and used illegal employment practices for 60 of its employees, a labor department investigation...

Just a few stories: President Biden declared that the US is on track to have enough Covid-19 vaccine to jab every adult in the country by the end of May. That did not stop Republicans in Texas and Mississippi from ending mask mandates and other Covid-19 safety measures. The House of Representatives may pass a major election reform bill that could give Senate Democrats the impetus to kill (or at least maim) the fillibuster. The Chicago Tribune spent some time on a retrospective of our winter weather...