Events

Two popular Evanston restaurants, Pine Yard and Taco Diablo, burned to the ground this morning: Fire crews from several neighboring communities -- including Morton Grove, Wilmette and Skokie -- were called to the scene to assist Evanston firefighters in battling the blaze. The fire apparently broke out sometime before 3 a.m. and fire crews were still fully engaged in battling the blaze nearly three hours later. The bike shop next door suffered water and smoke damage. Twelve pets at the Bramer Animal...

Time of the Doctor

I'm a few minutes from leaving my folks' house, looking at the weather forecast for Chicago. We may set a new record: The unseasonable late-season 10°C “warmth” which greets Chicagoans Saturday has swept into the area from southern Missouri over the past 24 hours. It’s stay is to be one of limited duration. A bitter southward plunge of frigid arctic air begins a downward temp spiral here Sunday which is to culminate in colder-than- -18°C Monday morning lows and single digits daytime highs—the coldest...

Another shot from Christmas afternoon, as promised:

Nephew #1 arrived yesterday evening while I sat a mile away talking with the manager of San Benito House and, apparently, challenging people to a Scrabble game later today. Nephew #1 is a much lighter sleeper than the rest of us, which causes him frustration, and when he gets frustrated he sets out to determine how much noise is required to make everyone exactly as light a sleeper as he. Fortunately, I'm on Chicago time, so getting up at 5am PST (7am CST) does not bother me. And it gives me some time to...

What is it about the right? I have difficulty imagining what it must be like to have such a constricted worldview that every provocation requires an escalation. The latest example of right-wing anti-diplomacy comes not from a state representative somewhere in the southern U.S., nor from a local Chinese official, nor from Marine le Pen. No, this time it's serial dick-swinger Shinzo Abe, who decided to help diffuse the tense diplomatic situation in the Sea of Japan by poking his finger in China's and...

Time of the Doctor

Check these out: Calculated Risk posits the 10 most important questions about the U.S. economy in 2014. Chicago History maps out some fun bits of street trivia, including this: One street crosses under the same El line four times. Name the street and the El line. The Dictionary of American Regional English is exactly what it says on the tin, and it's fun. Not sure you want to go on that trip but want to lock in the airfare for up to a week? Buy a call option on the fare. McDonald's may have had a...