The Daily Parker

So far today, Cassie has gotten almost exactly 10 km of walks, including a swing through the Horner Park DFA. This is a happy dog:

We also passed by a controlled burn in Winnemac Park:

They burn out the natural prairie areas periodically to help them grow back stronger. My only concern is that I believe there are several families of coyotes in the park. I hope they didn't lose their homes, or worse.

The temperature dropped below freezing Tuesday evening and stayed there until about half an hour ago. The forecast predicts it'll stay there until Wednesday night. And since we've got until about 3pm before the rain starts, it looks like Cassie will get a trip to the dog park at lunchtime.

Once it starts raining, I'll spend some time reading these:

• Andrew Sullivan shakes his head at "the dumb luck" of the OAFPOTUS.
• On David Roberts' podcast, Dan Savage muses on "blue America in the age" of the OAFPOTUS.
• Ross Douthat worries that "it's going to be normal to have extreme beliefs."
• Amtrak has announced it will bring brand-new Alstom train sets into Acela service this spring, bringing the top speed of the route up to 250 km/h—at least for the Trenton-to-Newark segment. (At this rate, assuming no improvements in European train service, Acela should reach comparable speeds in the 2050s.)

Finally, a friend recently sent me a book I've wanted to read for a while: The Coddling of the American Mind, which civil-liberties lawyer Greg Lukianoff and psychologist Jonathan Haidt expanded from their September 2015 Atlantic article. I have noticed that people born after 1995 don't seem to have the same resilience or tolerance for nuance that even people born a few years earlier have. Lukianoff and Haidt make an interesting case for why this is. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it when I finish.

Today may wind up being the last nice day of 2024, even though long-range forecasts suggest next week may have unseasonably warm and dry weather as well. Yesterday had nicer weather than today, with the temperature hitting 13°C under sunny skies. Yesterday was also the monthly Dog Day at Morton Arboretum in Chicago's southwest suburbs. And one of my friends has a membership.

We took the girls on the longest possible loop through the grounds, 8.7 km, in just over an hour and a half:

Sadly, we were so busy enjoying the day that we forgot to take pictures.

The next Dog Day is January 19th. Given Chicago's normal weather that time of year, we may skip it. Then again, both Kelsey and Cassie really enjoy snow.

The temperature in my neighborhood fell below freezing around 4am and kept dropping, bottoming out just a few minutes ago at -1.7°C, the coldest it's been since March 18th. So despite valiantly holding onto their leaves later in the year than I can remember, the gingko and maple trees around my house finally surrendered to the inevitable:

All those leaves fell in the last couple of hours. In fact I tried to get a photo of them just pouring off the tree, but that's hard to capture in a still photo.

Cassie found all the new smells irresistable:

The little darling also pulled so often this morning that she almost completely detached her leash from her harness, and so had to walk the rest of the way to school tethered to me through her collar. Neither of us liked that very much, but at least she stopped pulling right away.

Note to self: budget for new harness every 8 months.

The weather doesn't seem that great for a planned 15-kilometer walk through Logan Square and Avondale to visit a couple of stragglers on the Brews & Choos Project. We've got 4°C under a low overcast, but only light winds and no precipitation forecast until Monday night. My Brews & Choos buddy drew up a route starting from the east end of the 606 Trail and winding up (possibly) at Jimmy's Pizza Cafe.

Also, I've joined BlueSky, because it's like Xitter without the xit. The Times explains how you, too, can join. (Cassie also has an account, of course.)

My 4-minute train to Clybourn leaves in 45 minutes, so I want to save a few things for later reading:

• Josh Marshall says: "There’s plenty of time for theorizing and message testing. But the first thing to do is to oppose. Less arguing, more doing."
• After Pro Publica reported on the deaths of two women due to Georgia's religiously-motivated anti-abortion laws, Georgia disbanded its Maternal Mortality Committee, embarrassing not only the Republican-led government in the state but also every ostrich at the Atlanta Zoo.
• Blue Man Group has announced it will close its Chicago run on January 5th after 30 years at the Briar Street Theater.
• The Chicago Tribune, once more reminding me why I need to just give up my subscription, raised a hue and cry that "Lake Michigan water levels drop to lowest in years" without providing the context that the lake level is just 40 millimeters below its long-term average. Oh the humanity!
• Molly White spends 30 minutes explaining how crypto charlatans spent unbelievable sums to get their favored stooges elected, and largely succeeded.

Finally, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day this morning has a diptych of the Earth, one side from Saturn and the other side from Mercury. What makes it even more interesting is that both photos were taken 19 July 2013, making it the first time the Earth was photographed simultaneously from two other worlds in the solar system.

Winnemac Park, 3:39 pm:

Spiteful Brewing Tap Room, 7:08 pm:

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.

Cassie and I have gotten a full hour of walks today with the promise of more to come, as it's our third sunny day in a row, but today got above 19°C (though only up to 16.5°C at Inner Drive Technology WHQ). I had two minor bugs to fix at Weather Now, but mainly I've had meetings today, so getting outside with the dog felt great. And tomorrow: a 42-kilometer walk.

Meanwhile, with 18 days left before the election:

• Paul Krguman explains how the tariffs the XPOTUS wants to impose on us could "wreck our economy."
• The XPOTUS hurled profanity and insults at a bunch of Catholic priests at the Alfred E Smith Dinner last night, because he's, you know, a demented sexual predator who should never have gotten nominated the first time.
• The updated forecast for the coming Chicago winter looks like a mild La Niña, with elevated precipitation but normal temperatures. So, lots of rain.
• A precinct near my house went dry 117 years ago, and the handful of restaurants located within it want to change that.

Finally, the last Chuck E Cheese in Chicago has gotten rid of its animatronic band, opting for video screens instead. The youth of America weep.

Now if the crew repairing every single stair in my courtyard (which seems to involve hitting them all repeatedly with a hammer) would just go the f--- home, I could get some more work done.

Cassie, yesterday:

I didn't get up at 2am to drive to Mt Rainier like one of my friends, but I did spend almost all day outside yesterday. Cassie and I met friends (one human, one dog) in Elmhurst for a 9-kilometer walk down the Prairie Path in the morning. And my car flipped 30,000 km on the way back from the walk:

That 2.1 L/100 km (112 MPG) is for the entire life of the car. In fact, I used some gasoline yesterday for the first time since June 15th, so this year my car is getting closer to 1.5 L/100 km (151 MPG)—and of course infinite MPG for over three months. And of course, 30,000 km since 22 December 2018 is an average of 14.2 km per day, which is exactly how I avoid using gasoline most of the time.

Finally, yesterday evening Cassie and I went to Spiteful Brewing to enjoy the 24°C weather:

Today we're heading to the dog beach and the Dock, which closes for the season tonight.