Events

Cassie and I took a 7 km walk from sleep-away camp to Ribfest yesterday, which added up to 2½ hours of walkies including the rest of the day. Then we got some relaxing couch time in the evening. We don't get that many gorgeous weekend days in Chicago—perhaps 30 per year—so we had to take advantage of it. Of course, it's Monday now, and all the things I ignored over the weekend still exist: Josh Marshall digs into the OAFPOTUS's attack on the state of California, noting that "all the federalizations [of...

Pro tip: Get to Ribfest as soon as possible after it opens. Cassie and I arrived exactly at noon yesterday, allowing me to score three 3-bone samplers in just 45 minutes. Here, too, where I expect the lines would be a block long by 2pm: In the end, Cassie had a really good afternoon—at least until she went to sleep-away camp because of my concert: I sense ribs in my future today as well. And very likely a 5 km walk either coming or going from Ribfest. Sadly, we won't get there exactly at noon, because I...

Lunch today will be a sampler of ribs from the first vendor at Ribfest that looks appealing. Then Cassie goes to sleep-away camp and I go to a performance call in Glenview at 3pm. So tune in tomorrow morning for the first rib report.

A smattering of stories this morning show how modern life is both better and worse than in the past: A criminologist at Cambridge has spent 15 years working on "murder maps" of London, Oxford, and York, showing just how awful it was to live in the 14th Century: "The deadliest of the cities was Oxford, which he estimated to have a homicide rate of about 100 per 100,000 inhabitants in the 14th century, while London and York hovered at 20 to 25 per 100,000. (In 2023, the most recent year for which data is...

We had a lovely double rainbow yesterday: But this morning, we had something else entirely: Canadian wildfire smoke raised the air-quality index in Chicago to well over 150 this morning. This is the satellite view from about 20 minutes ago: Unlike the last couple of weeks, however, the smoke has now descended to ground level, making Chicago look like it did in the 1970s, before the Clean Air Act started to do its thing: We're hoping the smoke clears up soon. And that the Canadian firefighters will get...

Really, this post is just a list of links, but I'm going to start with Dan Rather's latest Stack: US Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) started her 2026 re-election campaign last week by telling constituents not to worry about the proposed $880 billion cuts to Medicaid because "we are all going to die." Writer Andy Craig takes a look at the destruction the OAFPOTUS and his droogs have caused, and tries to find a path back to a constitutional republic. "Whatever eventually replaces this crisis-ridden government...

Cassie and I met with her surgeon today to discuss removing the mast cell tumor on her head. The good news is that the tumor is small, sub-cutaneous (as opposed to being in her skull or more delicate tissue), and very slow-growing. The bad news is that its location, about a centimeter from her left ear, complicates the removal a bit. The surgeon generally prefers to remove about a 3-cm circle of tissue around the tumor. Since everyone wants Cassie to retain her left ear, she'll have to remove slightly...

Welcome to stop #129 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: McHenry Brewing, 3425 Pearl St., McHenryTrain line: Union Pacific Northwest, McHenry (Zone 4) Time from Chicago: 88 minutesDistance from station: 1.3 km It finally happened: I cheated. I couldn't figure any reasonable way to visit McHenry Brewing without taking an expensive and rare Lyft part of the way home, because the UP-NW line only has three daily trains to McHenry in the afternoon with three return trains in the morning. So, not wanting...

I have had no more than 15 consecutive minutes free at any point today. The rest of the week I have 3½-hour blocks on my calendar, but all the other meetings had to go somewhere, so they went to Monday. So just jotting down stories that caught my eye: Ukraine's masterful and crippling strike against the Russian Air Force over the weekend has changed warfare forever, writes Max Boot. Jen Rubin wants to end the creeping normalization of the OAFPOTUS and his droogs because, as she says, they're all nuts....

Two photos this morning. First, Cassie tried to convince the other patrons at Spiteful Brewing yesterday that no one ever pats her: She was pretty successful with the ruse. People stopped to pat her continuously. She has us all trained. Second, here is the GOES-East visible light photo from about half an hour ago: See all that haze from Alberta and Saskatchewan in the northwest, through the US Midwest, and swooping all the way down to Jacksonville and out to the Atlantic? That's wildfire smoke from the...