The Daily Parker

All works published before 1 January 1926 have now entered the public domain:

1925 was the year of heralded novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf, seminal works by Sinclair Lewis, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Agatha Christie, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley ... and a banner year for musicians, too. Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, the Gershwins, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller, among hundreds of others, made important recordings. And 1925 marked the release of canonical movies from silent film comedians Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

As of today, every single one of those works has entered the public domain. "That means that copyright has expired," explains Jennifer Jenkins, a law professor at Duke University who directs its Center for the Study of the Public Domain. "And all of the works are free for anyone to use, reuse, build upon for anyone — without paying a fee."

On January 1 every year, a new batch of published works is liberated from the constraints of copyright. (For a long time, copyright expired after 75 years, but in 1998, Congress extended the date of copyright expiration for works published between 1923 and 1977 to 95 years.) It's difficult to overstate the importance of having work in the public domain. For example, can you imagine the holidays without It's A Wonderful Life? That movie happened to be unprotected by copyright, so it was able to be shown — a lot — for free, contributing to its establishment as an American Christmas classic.

In an article about this year's Public Domain Day, Jenkins discusses everything from the changes in length of copyright to a fascinating story about the copyright of Hitler's Mein Kampf, which also enters the public domain this year. (A dizzyingly exhaustive list of works from 1925 now in the public domain can be found here.)

I will once again raise my objections to the Mickey Mouse Preservation Act of 1998. The Constitution allows for "limited" protections; 75 years is quite enough, thank you.

Thank you, Tom Lehrer, for encapsulating what this season means to us in the US. In the last 24 hours, we have seen some wonderful Christmas gifts, some of them completely in keeping with Lehrer's sentiment.

Continuing his unprecedented successes making his the most corrupt presidency in the history of the country (and here I include the Andrew Johnson and Warren Harding presidencies), the STBXPOTUS yesterday granted pardons to felons Charles Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone. Of the 65 pardons and commutations he has granted since becoming president, 60 have gone to people he knows personally and who have committed crimes on his behalf. Maggie Haberman and Michael S Schmidt say he's at his most unleashed as he tries to avoid leaving office the loser he is.

In other news:

• The UK and the EU have agreed a trading and security deal with only days to spare.
• Illinois has vaccinated over 100,000 people for SARS-Cov-2 so far, more than any other state.
• Calculated Risk lists the 10 biggest economic questions for 2021.
• Via Bruce Schneier, China has used stolen HR data to detect and neutralize CIA assets in Africa and Europe.
• We had a bit of weather in Chicago overnight. Around 2pm we hit a high temperature of 14.4°C, which dropped slowly to 9°C at 7pm, then promptly fell off a cliff. When I woke up this morning to frigid -10.6°C air, the temperature had dropped 25°C in 16 hours. Welcome to Chicago in winter.

Finally, enjoy this performance of the "Hallelujah" chorus from Händel's Messiah released just a few moments ago by the Apollo Chorus of Chicago:

The UK announced this morning that the National Health can start distributing a vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech next week:

Britain's medicines regulator, the MHRA, says the jab, which offers up to 95% protection against Covid-19 illness, is safe to be rolled out.

Elderly people in care homes and care home staff have been placed top of the priority list, followed by over-80s and health and care staff.

But because hospitals already have the facilities to store the vaccine at -70C, as required, the very first vaccinations are likely to take place there - for care home staff, NHS staff and patients - so none of the vaccine is wasted.

The Pfizer/BioNTech jab is the fastest vaccine to go from concept to reality, taking only 10 months to follow the same steps that normally span 10 years.

The UK has already ordered 40 million doses of the jab - enough to vaccinate 20 million people.

The doses will be rolled out as quickly as they can be made by Pfizer in Belgium, Mr Hancock said, with the first load next week and then "several millions" throughout December.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the first people in Scotland will be immunised on Tuesday.

Here in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have shortened the quarantine period recommended for people exposed to the virus but asymptomatic:

The first alternative is to end quarantine after 10 days if no symptoms are reported, Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s Covid-19 incident manager, said on a call with reporters. The second option is to end quarantine after seven days if an individual tests negative and also reports no symptoms.

The decision is based on new research and modeling data, Walke said.

Still, Walke noted that a 14-day quarantine is still the best way to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19.

The 14-day quarantine is based on the coronavirus's incubation period - the length of time it can take for a person to become infected after exposure to the virus.

We can see light at the end of this tunnel. Already, the Apollo Chorus have started discussing when we can resume in-person rehearsals and performances, in terms of city-wide infection rates, negative Covid tests, and vaccinations. We're going to get through this all right.

Winter began in the northern hemisphere this morning, which explains the gray cold enveloping Chicago. Nah, I kid: Chicago usually has a gray, cold envelope around it, just today it's official.

And while I ponder, weak and weary, why the weather is so dreary, I've got these to read:

• Writing in the New York Times, Die Zeit columnist Jochen Bittner explains why Germans worry about the Republican Party's lies about the election. (Hint: Germany remembers 1918 differently than we do.)
• This year's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge, will take place in an empty chapel for the first time since the BBC first broadcast them in the 1910s.
• Chicago police busted up a party of 300 people in Wicker Park over the weekend, in an effort to explain why we can't have nice things.
• Alex Ross asks, "What does it mean to 'reimagine' an orchestra season?"

Finally, if you haven't already heard our first virtual concert, go listen to it. We worked hard, and we gave an excellent performance.

The Apollo Chorus has a concert tonight (register here; you can watch any time before Christmas), so I'm getting this out a little late.

One problem with having a puppy, like Parker here at 9 months: action shots get more difficult (10 March 2007).

I would be remiss not to mention that today is the 50th anniversary of Tea for the Tillerman, Cat Stevens' best and most popular album. It's also one of my favorites.

Cover art by A&M Records (US), Fair use, Link

Fifty years ago today, the Grateful Dead released American Beauty:

There are countless versions of the Grateful Dead to tap into, hundreds of bootlegs and remastered live recordings to queue up. Many bona fide Deadheads would say it's not even worth bothering with the studio recordings. But American Beauty, released Nov. 1, 1970, and lined with back-to-back classics that earned them the title of the great American jam band, stands out from all the rest.

Meanwhile, yesterday set a couple more milestones that historians will talk about 50 years from now:

• Tropical Storm Eta became the 28th named storm of the North Atlantic hurricane season, setting a new record. Hurricane season officially ends a month from today.
• More than 91 million people have already voted in this election, about 2/3 of the total ballots cast (136.5 m) in 2016.
• The monthly average water level in the Lake Michigan-Huron system finally dipped below last year's levels, following 9 straight months of record or near-record levels.

Only 60 shopping days left until we finally exit this bizarre and horrible year.

I cracked the code on an application rewrite I last attempted in 2010, so I've spent a lot of my copious free time the past week working on it. I hope to have more to say soon, but software takes time. And when I'm in the zone, I like to stay there. All of which is why it's 9:30 and I have just gotten around to reading all this:

• The president stomped out of a 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl, and for reasons passing understanding, has threatened to release it himself.
• Pope Francis has officially endorsed civil partnerships for gays, to mixed reviews.
• NASA successfully landed a probe onto a small asteroid that scooped up some dust and gently lifted off again.
• The Lyric Opera of Chicago has officially cancelled the remainder of the 2020-21 season due to Covid-19.
• On this day in 1926, the heads of Chicago's Prohibition-era gangs signed a peace deal. (It lasted almost a year.)
• And what is "cuffing season" and why did no one inform me about it?

I'm now going to turn off all my screens, walk Parker, and go to bed. (Though I just got the good news that my 8:30 am demo got moved to a later time.)

Let's start with the good news: Julie Nolke has a new video.

OK, ready for everything else?

• The president called Kamala Harris "this monster" in an interview Thursday, because of course he did.
• The New England Journal of Medicine came a millimeter from endorsing Joe Biden in an editorial published yesterday.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) have introduced legislation to create a commission on presidential capacity, without naming the person who inspired the bill.
• Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called for an independent commission on redistricting to draw the ward map in 2021.
• The World Food Programme has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
• My law school classmate and friend Paul Hletko has been named one of Crain's 2020 Notable Entrepreneurs for his work creating and managing FEW Spirits.
• The Guardian has an interview with author Neil Gaiman today.

And finally, today would have been John Lennon's 80th birthday.

I'm going into my downtown Chicago office twice a week, even though I'm the only one on the floor, just so I can get some variety and also more monitors for my work laptop. Last week the building started piping classical music into the main lobby. They, or the streaming provider, have chosen pretty basic stuff: Mozart piano concerti, Haydn symphonies, the occasional string quartet.

Today the walk-on music was Barber's Adagio for Strings. Think about the movies that used this piece and ask yourself, is this what people want to hear walking into their office building at 8:45 on a Monday morning? During a global emergency? Ten weeks before the most consequential election in the last 75 years?

I will now sob briefly before coding a fun demo.