Someone call lunch
Today in Chicago we have seen more sun than in the past several weeks, and yet here I toil in my cube. But a lot is going on outside it:Josh Marshall has come around to agreement that the House should...
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Traffic jam at the top of the world
The Apollo Chorus performed Joby Talbot's Everesta few weeks ago, and to prepare for the opera I read Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. (The opera is based on the events described in that book.) I...
View ArticleWhy do kids love garbage trucks?
The Atlanticscoops up the hypotheses:When I asked Sheila Williams Ridge, who teaches early-childhood education at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, for any insights she...
View ArticleDon't to it!
In case you're thinking of booby-trapping your house this Christmas, don't do this:
View ArticleThink of the children
This article came up in an online discussion some friends and I had this morning about, let's just say, a public figure with high-profile children:Being raised by a narcissistic parent is emotionally...
View ArticleIn other news...
Let me first acknowledge that the biggest news story today today came from the House Judiciary Committee, which has drawn up two articles of impeachment against President Trump. This comes after...
View ArticleAnother long-predicted climate change force is confirmed
The US government's 2019 Arctic Report Card finds that melting permafrost has made the arctic a net producer of greenhouse gasses:Especially noteworthy is the report’s conclusion that the Arctic...
View ArticleWhere you and 74 friends can ride out the apocalypse
Kansas developer Larry Hall bought a missile silo and turned it into a 15-story apartment complex:Hall was able to buy the long since decommissioned silo for a fraction of its construction cost. He...
View ArticleI'll take an antacid with my lunch now
With only two weeks left in the decade, it looks like the 2010s will end...bizarrely.More people have taken a look at the President's unhinged temper tantrum yesterday. I already mentioned that Aaron...
View ArticleJohnson, Clinton, Trump
Yesterday, the House of Representatives impeached the president for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress:After 11 hours of fierce argument on the House floor between Democrats and Republicans...
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Hot time down under
(Say it with me: "Under where?")Australia just hit a record temperature—for the whole country:The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) reports preliminary data showing that for Dec. 18, the...
View ArticleA theory on the Trump aesthetic
Former Deadspin editor David Roth examines the evidence in this year's White House Christmas decorations video:Even though Melania is also a cipher whose relationship to her powerful husband has for...
View ArticleChristmas crabs
Actually, Christmas Island crabs, which migrate around Christmas, and were the subject of an NPR story yesterday:Palm fronds, turquoise lagoons and a clattering army of crustaceans making their way...
View ArticleDie hard but not quickly
Eddie Lampert continues to destroy the once-great retailer Sears piece by piece. Yesterday, the company revealed that it has sold the DieHard battery brand to Advance Auto Parts for $200m in cash:The...
View ArticleHappy Christmas all
Every year at this time, it's important to talk about language skills. There is a tribe in the remotest part of the Amazon forest who, every December 25th, dance around a large pile of dirt, singing to...
View ArticleEnd of the decade? Yes, dammit
Nineteen years ago, I banged the drum pretty hard that 2000 was not the first year of the 21st Century, because the Christian calendar has no year zero. But yesterday, I disagreed entirely with Sandi...
View ArticleWar criminal
New information has come out that retired Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, the convicted (and pardoned) war criminal, did some truly abhorrent shit while fighting in Iraq:The trove of materials...
View ArticleFour stories, more related than they seem
Article the first: Stocks have continued going up relentlessly even though producer prices are also up, exports are way down, and wages have stagnated. This means, essentially, our economy is...
View ArticlePhotos of the 2010s
Two collections:The Chicago Tribune has a rundown of the 100 best news photos they published in the last 10 years.The New York Times has satellite photos of various spots around the country showing...
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Two big 20th anniversaries today (and a centennial)
We typically think of January 1st as the day things happen. But December 31st is often the day things end.On 31 December 1999, two things ended at nearly the same time: the presidency in Russia of...
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