Today marks the middle of winter, when fewer days remain in the (meteorological) season than have passed. Good thing, too: yesterday we had temperatures that looked happy on a graph but felt miserable in real life, and the forecast for Sunday night into Monday will be even worse—as in, a low of -20°C going "up" to -14°C. Fun!.
(Yesterday's graph:)
Elsewhere in the world:
- Israel and Hamas have reached a cease-fire agreement, with the US and Qatar signing off.
- OAFPOTUS Defense Secretary nominee, former Fox News pretty boy, and all-around fundamentalist crackpot Pete Hegseth sat before the US Senate Armed Services committee yesterday, whose Republican members asked him about "your wife that you love" and whose Democratic members asked him about unlawful orders and the numerous allegations of wrongdoing against him. My combat-decorated junior Senator, Tammy Duckworth (D), flatly called him "unqualified." (She was being polite.)
- Jennifer Rubin calls Hegseth "the greatest DEI disaster ever:" "Considering Hegseth, election denier Attorney General Pam Bondi, WWE exec Linda McMahon for secretary of education, and vaccine denier, brain-worm victim Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Health and Human Services, one must conclude Republicans are not sending us their best. (Or, the more alarming alternative…they are sending their best.)" Ruth Marcus also piled on.
- Author John Scalzi shares his thoughts on the allegations against and admissions of author Neil Gaiman published in New York this week.
- Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) has proposed $1.5 bn in spending to improve transit for the entire area.
- Chicago lost another coyote yesterday when a plane taking off from O'Hare ran him over. (Neither the FAA nor United Airlines has confirmed that the coyote died, but I think we can make an inference here.)
- Last year was the second-warmest on record in Illinois, continuing a long-term warming trend that began after the coldest winters ever in the early 1980s.
Finally, as of today I've had a private pilot certificate for 25 years. When I last posted about this anniversary, I hoped to resume flying later that spring. Alas, something else was in the air. I still want to fly again, though. All I need is a winning lottery ticket.
Yesterday, the temperature at Inner Drive Technology World HQ scraped along at -11°C early in the morning before "warming" up to -7.5°C around 3pm. Cassie and I got a 22-minute walk around then and she seemed fine. Today the pattern completely inverted. I woke up during the warmest part of the day: 7am, -8°C. Around 8am the temperature started dropping and now hovers around -11°C again—slightly colder than the point where I limit Cassie to 15 minutes outside. She just doesn't feel cold, apparently, and would happily stay outside until she passed out from hypothermia.
So, bottom line, I'm in no hurry to take her for her lunchtime walk.
Besides, I've got a lot of interesting stories to read:
- Former Canadian Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff explains why he's a liberal, and why you should be, too.
- Jesse Wegman and Lee Drutman have some ideas about how to fix the United States' "two-party problem:" proportional representation.
- Block Club Chicago lists 10 of its investigations into the Chicago Transit Authority's mismanagement under its outgoing boss, Dorval Carter.
- Chuck Marohn explains why building tons of new housing in old, dense cities like San Francisco and NYC doesn't work as well as people hope.
- Two Illinois state representatives introduced a bill in the state House to decriminalize sex work, which would dramatically increase their safety and security.
- British computer scientist Peter Kirstein died five years ago, and left behind a delightful essay on the beginnings of the Internet—and the Internet's first-ever password.
- James Poniewozik has a fun history of TV show opening titles that will waste a few minutes of your afternoon (in a good way).
Finally, yet another coyote found his way into a store, this time an Aldi in Humboldt Park. Almost 17 years ago one of his ancestors tried to hide in a Quiznos sandwich shop in the Loop. The result was the same for both: removal and relocation. Block Club says yesterday's incident involved "rescuing" the coyote from the Aldi, but that seems pretty harsh. Like, was the coyote trying to go to Whole Foods instead? They're usually not that bougie.
Cassie and I survived our 20-minute, -8°C walk a few minutes ago. For some reason I feel like I need a nap. Meanwhile:
Finally, I want to end with Ross Douthat's latest (subscriber-only) newsletter, taking Vivek Ramaswamy to task for suggesting American kids need more intense competition in order for the US to stay ahead of its peers. I'll just focus on one paragraph, where he suggests Ramaswamy's end goal may not be a place we really want to go:
[T]he atmosphere he’s describing in South Korea, the frantic cycle of educational competition, isn’t just a seeming contributing factor to that country’s social misery; it’s almost certainly a contributing factor to the literal collapse of South Korea’s population, the steep economic rise that Munger describes giving way to an equally steep demographic decline. So for societies no less than individuals, it appears possible to basically burn out on competition, to cram-school your way to misery, pessimism and collapse — something that any advocate of intensified meritocratic competition would do well to keep in mind.
As I have more and more contact with kids born after 1995, I find so many of them who either have flat personalities, an inability to function independently, and an alarming lack of emotional resilience, or who have vitality, intelligence, and an ability to function in the world but no ambition. The last 30 years have crushed the elite-adjacent kids whose parents want them to enter the elite, whatever they think "elite" means. As a kid who traveled alone on public transit to Downtown Chicago at age 7, and managed to get from O'Hare security to LAX security without help by age 8, I feel sorry for these incompetent, despondent children.
We've gotten about 4 cm of snow so far today, with more coming down until this evening. Cassie loves it; I have mixed feelings. At least the temperature has gone up a bit, getting up to -0.6°C for the first time since around this time on Monday.
Elsewhere:
- Federal Judge Aileen Cannon (R-SDFL) got overruled again, this time after her corrupt effort to block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on January 6th.
- George Will bemoans Congress ceding so much of its authority to the office of the President, especially given who will take that office in ten days.
- Just three corrupt Chicago cops will cost the city almost $34 million in settlements, making me wonder why we don't pay those settlements out of the police pension fund.
- Pamela Paul objects to historians opining about politics, which is actually one of the things they've always done.
- Five years after the pandemic began, we still haven't gotten back in the habit of being out in public, according to Derek Thompson at The Atlantic.
Finally, Maplewood Brewing has started expanding its Logan Square taproom into the other half of the building it occupies. I don't get there often, but I enjoy going back. Can't wait to see what their restaurant looks like when it's done. I also need to get to Cherry Circle Room or the CAA Drawing Room soon, as it looks like the management transition from Land & Sea to Boka may change some things.
In case you weren't frustrated enough:
And finally, a new report says that Chicago has the second-worst road traffic in the world, behind only Istanbul, Türkiye, with 102 hours per year wasted in traffic. That doesn't mean 102 hours traveling, it means 102 hours over and above nominal travel times from point A to point B. For comparison, I spent 113 hours total commuting to work last year.
Despite getting back to a relative normal in 2023, 2024 seemed to revert back to how things went in 2020—just without the pandemic. Statistically, though, things remained steady, for the most part:
- I posted 480 times on The Daily Parker, 20 fewer than in 2023 and 17 below the long-term median. January and July had the most posts (48) and April and December the fewest (34). The mean of 40.0 was slightly lower than the long-term mean (41.34), with a standard deviation of 5.12, reflecting a mixed posting history this year.
- Flights went up slightly, to 17 segments and 25,399 flight miles (up from 13 and 20,541), the most of either since 2018:
- I visited 3 countries (Germany, the UK, and France) and 5 US states (Washington, North Carolina, Arizona, California, Texas). Total time traveling: 189 hours (up from 156).
- Cassie got 369 hours of walks (down from 372) and at least that many hours of couch time.
- Fitness numbers for 2024: 4,776,451 steps and 4,006 km (average: 13,050 per day), up from 4.62m steps and 3,948 km in 2023. Plus, I hit my step goal 343 times (341 in 2023). I also did my second-longest walk ever on October 19th, 43.23 km.
- Driving went way down. My car logged only 3,812 km (down from 5,009) on 54 L of gasoline (down from 87), averaging 1.4 L/100 km (167 MPG). I last filled up April 8th, and I still have half a tank left. Can I make it a full year without refueling?
- Total time at work: 1,807 hours at my real job (down from 1,905) and 43 hours on consulting and side projects, including 841 hours in the office (up from 640), plus 114 hours commuting (up from 91). For most of the summer we had 3-days-a-week office hours, but starting in November, that went back to 1 day a week.
- The Apollo Chorus consumed 225 hours in 2024, with 138 hours rehearsing and performing (cf. 247 hours in 2023).
In all, fairly consistent with previous years, though I do expect a few minor perturbations in 2025: less time in the office, less time on Apollo, and more time walking Cassie.
Welcome to a revisit to #5 on the Brews and Choos project.
Distillery: 28 Mile Vodka, 454 Sheridan Rd., Highwood, Ill.
Train line: Metra Union Pacific North, Highwood
Time from Chicago (Ogilvie): 52 minutes, zone 4
Distance from station: 300 m
After Amtrak effectively cancelled our day trip to Milwaukee on Friday and meeting a third friend up there, my Brews & Choos buddy and I met the other friend in Highwood instead. We ultimately met up at Broken Tee Brewing, but we had an hour to kill while the third friend drove down from Wisconsin, so we went to 28 Mile Vodka.
I'm happy to report that Brews & Choos stop #5 is still going strong, with some innovative drinks and new spirits. I had a flight of two gins and two bourbons; my B&CB had a smoky Old Fashioned that we both thought was dangerously delicious.
Also of note was the manager's kindness letting us in an hour before opening to get out of the gloomy drizzle. He admitted that the distillery's website shows a 3pm opening time, but for the winter they actually open at 4pm.
The kitchen opened right as we were leaving to meet our third friend, so we didn't try anything on the menu. We wanted to. And perhaps we will in the near future.
28 Mile Vodka remains a "Would Go Back" Brews & Choos stop.
Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? No
Televisions? None
Serves food? Yes, elevated
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes
I had planned to go to Milwaukee for a quick day trip yesterday to further the Brews & Choos Project. Two friends were going to meet me at the Public Market, then go to two breweries and a distillery in the five hours between trains.
Alas, after everyone had boarded the 1:05 Hiawatha, Amtrak got all of us off the train and cancelled it because of—no kidding—a flat wheel. We could have gone on the (now-overcrowded) 3:05, but we just decided to forget it and meet one of the friends up in Highwood.
So I'll have a revisited Brews & Choos review of 28 Mile Vodka later this weekend, but no reviews of Milwaukee breweries until next year.
Because Christmas came on a Wednesday*, and my entire UK-based team have buggered off until Monday in some cases and January 6th in others, I'm off for the long weekend. Tomorrow my Brews & Choos buddy and I will hit three places in Milwaukee, which turns out to be closer to downtown Chicago by train than a few stations on the Union Pacific North and Northwest lines.
Meanwhile, read some of these:
Enjoy the weekend. I'll have three Brews & Choos Reviews up before the end of the year, plus the 2025 sunrise chart for Chicago.
* That was also The Daily Parker's 9,500th post since the "modern" blog began in November 2005.
The Chicago Department of Planning and Development has proposed changing the zoning rules along a stretch of Broadway between Montrose and Devon to increase its density while simultaneously reducing its car-oriented ugliness:
The move could jumpstart housing construction, support local businesses and create a streamlined and consistent process for development in a part of town that has seen increased developer attention, city officials have said.
A driving factor in the rezoning is the CTA’s Red Line overhaul between the Bryn Mawr and Lawrence stations, city planner Danielle Crider said. The project is expected to be completed on time in 2025, at which point the CTA will have four properties along Broadway it acquired for construction and will no longer need, making it prime land for redevelopment.
Normally, things like a drive-thru, gas stations or other auto-related businesses could also be developed under a C1-5 zoning, but the planning department would also create a “pedestrian street designation” on the areas with this zoning to prevent certain car-oriented businesses, according to materials from the meeting.
A pedestrian street designation means curb cutouts for driveways are prohibited, parking must be from the alley and the building’s exterior must be on the sidewalk — effectively barring strip malls — according to the department. It’s intended to “preserve and enhance pedestrian oriented shopping districts,” but won’t affect strip malls along Broadway that already exist, materials show.
Naturally, people living in less-dense areas near Broadway like Lakewood-Balmoral are yelling NIMBY. That said, this sounds like an excellent proposal, and a good way to use the Red/Purple El reconstruction to the city's benefit.
I also love that Block Club Chicago pays attention to these things. I've let my Chicago Tribune subscription lapse because the hedge fund that owns it couldn't give two shakes about the neighborhoods near mine.