Events

Williams College Biology Professor Luana Maroja sounds the alarm as she sees students challenging long-established science on political grounds: The trouble began when we discussed the notion of heritability as it applies to human intelligence. I asked students to think about the limitations of the data, which do not control for environmental differences, and explained that the raw numbers say nothing about whether observed differences are indeed “inborn”—that is, genetic. There is, of course, a long...

Today's Daily Parker flash of inspiration will memorialize my update to an obsolete proverb. Instead of "a stopped watch is right twice a day," substitute "a dead mobile gets no bad texts." On second thought, they're not orthogonal. But in my defense, I was thinking of the president at the time.

First run

Just a few things in the news: The Illinois legislature has approved an amendment to the state constitution that, if approved by voters in November 2020, will allow the state to set up a graduated income tax. The current proposal would slightly lower taxes for most people but dramatically increase taxes for people making over $500,000 per year. James Fallows has a look at the real complexities of the urban-rural divide in the US. James Comey has an Op-Ed in the Post about the dumb lies the President...

Yesterday Chicago set a few weather records: wettest Memorial Day ever recorded, tied for most days in May with measurable prediction (18), tied for most days in May that have had more than 7.6 mm of precipitation (10), and up to the 3rd wettest month of May (186 mm). And we have more rain predicted tonight. Warmer air holds more moisture. The atmosphere worldwide is warmer. QED.

People who thought moving to far suburbs made economic sense in the 1990s and 2000s can't seem to sell their ugly, too-large houses: "For most of the 1990s, if you looked at the geographic center of jobs in the Chicago area, it was moving steadily northwest, out from the city toward Schaumburg," homebuilding consultant Tracy Cross says. Like the corporate campuses that popped up in that era, the houses were often built big. A generation later, tastes for both have faded: Corporations have shifted their...

Burger King has decided to embrace the suck: Sir, this was a Burger King commercial. Part of a partnership with the nonprofit Mental Health America — as well as an unsubtle dig at the McDonald’s Happy Meal — the nearly two-minute “short film” promotes a limited-time, select-city product called “Real Meals,” which correspond to a customer’s “real” mood: Blue, Salty, Pissed, DGAF and YAAAS. In place of information about where to seek help if you’re experiencing feelings of depression, which would usually...