Shared streets in Chicago
The city has started adding traffic controls to side streets in an effort to encourage outdoor recreation and social distancing:Earlier this week, officials said at least six streets are expected to be...
View ArticleContinued ethnic unrest in former British colony
The Washington Post's Karen Attiah imagines how an American newspaper would cover the protests in Minnesota if it used the same tropes as typically found in Western articles on politics elsewhere:The...
View ArticleShutting down
In 45 minutes, the entire CTA system will shut down to make it harder for wandering bands of hordes (my mom's expression) from continuing to cause havoc:Starting at 6:30 p.m., CTA will suspend service...
View ArticleWelcome to Summer!
Yes, June 1st, the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere (according to climatologists, anyway), and Chicago has never seemed more exciting. Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced last week that we...
View ArticlePsycopathic response to state violence
Not content to give psychologists circumstantial evidence of psycopathy, the president became even more unhinged and reactive this weekend. Since he has no capacity for empathy or even, it seems,...
View ArticleChanneling Chavez
In a move reminiscent of the authoritarian dictators he adores, President Trump yesterday had protesters forcibly cleared from the streets in front of St John's Episcopal Church in Washington so he...
View ArticleRe-reading the ur-text
Italian author Umberto Eco lived through the last half of Mussolini's reign, and through the fall of Communism in Europe. In 1995 he wrote an essay in the New York Review of Books entitled...
View ArticleObservers see big stumble in American democracy
President Trump's ham-fisted photo-op in front of St John's Episcopal Church on Monday rattled friendly intelligence officers and emboldened our adversaries. Former CIA officer Gail Helt saw a familiar...
View ArticleA busy day
Last weekend's tsunami continues to ripple:Ultra-right-wing US Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), writing in the New York Times to great opprobrium, recommends sending in the troops.Former general and Defense...
View ArticleGood (and surprising) news on jobs
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its May jobs report this morning, showing that despite 2.7 million people losing their jobs in May, 2.5 million got back in work, and the unemployment rate...
View ArticleStrange turns of IP law
First, four publishers have sued the Internet Archive for "mass copyright infringement" following IA temporarily suspending waiting lists on borrowing e-books:The plaintiffs — John Wiley & Sons and...
View ArticleBig names with big warnings
The Washington Post this morning has two pieces with impressive bylines, both warning about the path the United States is walking right now. First, Salman Rushdie:In my life, I have seen several...
View ArticleWelp. There goes the neighborhood
A 10-hectare section of Alta, Norway, slipped into the sea on Wednesday, destroying 8 vacation homes and temporarily inconveniencing a dog:The landslide, which ran 2,133 feet along the shore and went...
View ArticleDay 84 of the Year Without a Year
First, some good news: New Zealand has not had a new Covid-19 case in 14 days, making it officially coronavirus-free. Given it's an archipelago of 3 million people more than 2,000 km from its nearest...
View ArticleQuick personal notes
Note #1: After 108 days—a record, I think—I finally got a haircut.Note #2: After thinking about it for years, literally years, I got a new toy. It's a lot of fun. And it combines two of my favorite...
View ArticleMini Me
I mentioned yesterday I got a new toy. Finally, after years of thinking about it (and also watching prices come down), I bought a small drone. The Mavic Mini weighs 249 grams (which has legal...
View ArticleA bit windy
Day 3 of flight testing didn't go as well as I'd hoped. The winds picked up a bit, so my little guy refused to ascend past 28 meters and at one point lost contact with my remote. I have a feeling that...
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Then and Now, Magnolia and Wilson
I love historian J.R. Schmidt's "Then and Now" series on his Chicago History Today blog. Mostly he posts photos he took as a kid (late 1940s through early 1960s) and contrasts them with contemporary...
View ArticleMorning flight
This morning I took my tiny drone out for a longer flight than the short tests I've done so far, in part because at 8am the winds didn't threaten to blow the thing into the lake. I've also started...
View ArticleToday in the weird
It's day 88 of my exile from the office, but I recently found out I may get to go in for a day soon. Will this happen before the 24th (day 100)? Who's got the over/under on that?Meanwhile, outside my...
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