UIC's Dis/Placements project maps Uptown
Via Bloomberg CityLab and Block Club Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago started a project in 2017 to chart the "displacements of people and struggles over land, housing, and community in...
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Even Chicago will have climate-related troubles
Dan Egan, author of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (which I read last November while staring out at one of them), explains in yesterday's New York Times how climate change will cause problems...
View ArticleThe preservationist leanings of Scooby-Doo
CityLab's Feargus O'Sullivan riffs on an Instagram account that celebrates Scooby-Doo's Victorian backdrops:It should come as no surprise that creaking mansard roofs, vaulted dungeons and abandoned...
View ArticleGetting closer to London
I last visited my second-favorite city in the world in November 2019. At my day job, I report just two levels up to the head of the London office, so had things gone to plan, I'd have visited at least...
View ArticleYeah, so, 10k steps isn't all that
The New York Timesthrows cold water on a health fad:According to Dr. I-Min Lee, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an expert on step counts and health, the...
View ArticleInside the Anom phone
Via Bruce Schneier, Motherboard got ahold of a pair of Anom phones, which the FBI and Australian Federal Police used to take down a bunch of criminal networks earlier this year:Motherboard has obtained...
View ArticleTennessee punishes teenagers with health mandate
The Tennessee Dept of Health will stop telling adolescents about vaccines—especially about the HPV vaccine:The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach – not just for...
View ArticleIt was 20 years ago today
...that I left a medium-sized consulting firm based here in Chicago. The firm itself doesn't really matter. I left because I couldn't tolerate commuting to Houston every week to work on a project for a...
View ArticleFloods in Northwest Europe
Hundreds of people are missing and dozens confirmed dead in some of the worst flooding in European history:Following a day of frantic rescue efforts and orders to evacuate towns rapidly filling with...
View ArticleKnow-Nothings come to Niles Public Library
The Niles, Ill., public library topped lists around the world for its best-in-class offerings. As part of the North Suburban Library System, it shares resources with other world-class public libraries,...
View ArticleFallen on Hard Times
I've just yesterday finished Charles Dickens' Hard Times, his shortest and possibly most-Dickensian novel. I'm still thinking about it, and I plan to discuss it with someone who has studied it in depth...
View Article8,000
The Daily Parker has, as of yesterday, 8,000 posts since 13 May 1998. We should hit 10,000 in February 2025. Keep reading and find out!
View ArticleShit Went Down
Having finished Hard Times, I started a new book last night, and realized right away it will take me a year to read. The book, Shit Went Down (On This Day in History) by James Fell relates an...
View ArticleIn the news today...
I haven't had time to read a lot lately, as I mentioned. Maybe these explain why:House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) stomped off in a tantrum after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rejected...
View ArticleMore stuff to read
I know, two days in a row I can't be arsed to write a real blog post. Sometimes I have actual work to do, y'know?The Economist argues that when the world gets 3°C hotter, nowhere will be safe.The New...
View ArticleNiggling irritation at corporate hubris
Wednesday I caught a story on NPR's Morning Edition that lingered, and not in a good way. Reporter David Gura presented a story about how corporate boards have difficulty telling their top executives...
View ArticleIn theaters near you
Yesterday, I went to a movie theater for the first time since 26 January 2020—a gap of 545 days. The movie? Black Widow. You have to watch MCU films on a big screen before watching them at home,...
View ArticleSunday morning reading (and listening)
Just a couple of articles that caught my interest this morning:Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann warns us "the signal of climate change has emerged from the noise."The BBC examines the cost of...
View ArticleMarvel's dad bod
For reasons that astute readers will infer, a Men's Health article in praise of David Harbour's dad bod in Marvel's Black Widow made me feel good:When Romanoff and her “sister,” Yelena (Florence Pugh),...
View ArticleWe're about done with this crap
As Chicago contemplates returning to a more-restrictive environment because of rising Covid-19 cases, those of us who have gotten vaccinated have had about enough of people who refuse to get the jab....
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