You've heard the expression "crossing the Rubicon," but you may not know the history.
In the Roman Republic, the Rubicon marked the border of Italy (read: the Home Counties/Eastern Seaboard), where it was illegal to garrison troops. In 49 BCE, Julius Caesar ran out of lawful ways to—wait for it—avoid prosecution for corruption stemming from his first term as Consul, and the Senate denied him the governorship of Cisalpine Gallus (read: the Midlands/the Midwest) which would have also granted him immunity. So he and his XIII Legion crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome to force the Senate to make him Dictator of Rome. It worked out for Caesar, but not for the Republic.
The ensuing civil war killed a good fraction of the Roman population and conclusively ended the Republic. Then just days before the end of that conflagration, Caesar had his unfortunate accident in the Senate. This led to Caesar's great-nephew Octavian becoming Emperor shortly thereafter, starting a 400-year slow-motion disintegration of Roman civilization. And the distraction of all this prepared the ground in Judea for a fundamentalist sect to break off from Judaism and go on to bury the 1500-year-old Greco-Roman religion in the archaeological dust.
The relevance of this history to current events is left as an exercise for the reader.
Revolution Brewpub, which opened its Logan Square brewpub in 2010 and featured in the (really bad) film Drinking Buddies, announced it will close on December 14th:
Almost 15 years ago, we threw open the doors of our Milwaukee Avenue brewpub and launched Revolution Brewing to the world. The brewpub is where the first Revolution beers were served and where we first brewed beers like Anti-Hero IPA which would change the shape of craft beer in Chicagoland. Today that chapter of our story starts to wind down as we announce that we are permanently closing the doors of the Logan Square brewpub, with our last day of service on December 14th.
You could count the number of other breweries in the city on one hand back in the day. Our experience definitely inspired others to take their shot and now there are close to a hundred different places brewing beer in the city.
Our Kedzie Avenue production brewery and tap room opened just two years after the pub and that’s where our business thrives now and where we will remain fully operational and open to the public.
Sad news, but totally understandable. Since I started the Brews & Choos Project in February 2020, fully 24 breweries have closed, most of them because of the after-effects of the pandemic. I'm sad to lose Revolution on Milwaukee, but glad they'll stay open on Kedzie.
The sky above Chicago has nothing but sun this morning. It won't last—the forecast for tomorrow night points to July-like atmospheric moisture and epic rainfall—but Cassie and I will enjoy it as much as we can.
Maybe I should stay away from these news stories until the rain starts for real:
- Michelle Goldberg reminds all you Hannah Arendt fans that fascism takes time to establish itself, so we have perhaps a couple of years to emigrate if the XPOTUS takes power in January: "The transition from democracy to autocracy is a process, not an on-off switch."
- Jay Willis shakes his head that "Jeff Bezos doesn't understand that he is the problem:" "[T]he possibility that Americans might also not care for a rich guy leveraging his power to compromise political coverage in the middle of an up-or-down vote on fascism seems not to have occurred to him."
- Dylan Byers takes to Puck to muse about Bezos's side of the argument: "Ultimately, Bezos wants to own, and Lewis wants to manage, a paper staffed by a team that supports their vision for semi-nonpartisan, future-proofed profitability."
- Jeff Jarvis explains in the Columbia Journalism Review why liberals are infuriated with the media: "Journalists like to say they write the first draft of history. Too often that means they ignore history. Today I urge journalists to reread Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism so as to understand her historical antecedents."
- Inae Oh expands on why people not already in the bag for the XPOTUS might hate election coverage right now: "Trump’s menacing language—a constant for almost a decade—rarely draws the notice that Garbage-gate has received. To call this imbalance typical both-sidesism fails to adequately convey the failures of the media in 2024."
- Robert Wright congratulates Elon Musk on becoming America's first true oligarch: "Musk is far and away the most dramatic example of concentrated power. By virtue of his undeniable intelligence, creativity, and drive, he has wound up with an impressively diverse portfolio of influence."
- Micky Horstman, writing an op-ed in Crain's, wants public transit in Chicago that people actually want to use: "Other cities have figured out how to run a transit agency post-pandemic. Chicago can, too."
But after all of this, yesterday Jennifer Rubin made "the case for election optimism." So I'll end this post with her argument:
Americans need to retain perspective, muster up patience, let the vote counting proceed, avoid bestowing MAGA legal challenges credibility they do not deserve and insist on bipartisan recognition of the winner. We can do this, America.
Yes, we can.
When voting, consider that under a dictatorship, courts have no independence and have to issue nonsensical rulings like the one a Russian court just issued in order to remain in favor of the dictator:
U.S. tech giant Google has closed up shop in Russia, but that hasn’t stopped a court there from leveling it with a fine greater than all the wealth in the world — a figure that is growing every day.
The fine, imposed after certain channels were blocked on YouTube, which Google owns, has reached more than 2 undecillion rubles, Russian business newspaper RBC reported this week. That’s about $20 decillion — a two followed by 34 zeros.
Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters Thursday that the figure was symbolic and should be a reason for Google to pay attention to the Moscow Arbitration Court’s order to restore access to the YouTube channels.
The sum grew so large because the fine increases with time in noncompliance, with no upper limit. The order was made after 17 blocked channels joined a lawsuit against Google’s American, Irish and Russia-based companies, according to RBC. The lawsuit predates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was initiated in 2020 by a channel that YouTube blocked to comply with U.S. sanctions.
The Post drolly notes in the article that "Google did not respond to a request for comment."
In all seriousness, if the XPOTUS returns to office, it's only a matter of weeks before Judges Aileen Cannon (R-FL) or Matthew Kacsmaryk (Bigly R-TX) come up with something similar.
Very busy day—I'll explain more tomorrow—so all I have to say right now is, I can't wait until Wednesday. I voted yesterday, so the 90% of my inbox taken up by the Democratic Party and various candidates all pleading for something represents a lot of wasted time and bytes.
Not to mention the dozens of spam texts I receive. Thank you, T-Mobile, for shunting those away from me.
Just stop, y'all. I live in Chicago, I've already voted, and I gave money where it mattered most this cycle. You're wasting my time. Just stop.