The markets started slightly up this morning, but whatever optimism traders had before noon has evaporated. Both the S&P and DJIA are technically up, but less than 0.5%, while the OAFPOTUS continues to act like the demented old man he is.
And to think, Twin Peaks turned 35 today.
Meanwhile...
Finally, SMBC inadvertently explains the Republican Party's entire educational policy, complete with a joke I've made for years: if I ever win the lottery, I'll set up a math scholarship for areas that sell the most lottery tickets.
If you're old enough, you may remember the show Moonlighting, which ran from March 1985 until May 1989 on ABC. And if you remember Moonlighting, you may remember this bit from the first season finale that aired 40 years ago today:
Later today we'll return to our ongoing existential horror. But let's pause and remember what it was like to watch that scene unfold on broadcast television with no way to play it back until it finished recording on tape.
Welcome to a special stop on the Brews and Choos project.
Brewery: Tennessee Brew Works, 809 Ewing Ave., Nashville, Tenn.
4 stars
Train line: Wego Train, Riverfront Nashville
Time from Chicago: 2 hours
Distance from station: 1.7 km
Neither Tennessee Brew Works nor New Heights Brewing is a particularly pleasant walk from the WeGo station, but I would visit both of them again. TBW decided to give us two drink tokens each instead of worrying about pouring and distributing 40 flights. I chose two of their IPAs, the Hippies & Cowboys (6%, 35 IBU) and the River Drifter (6.2%, 45 IBU). (I didn't notice at the time that they also had a hazy on the menu, but when a bunch of professional drinkers from England are behind you in line, you don't waste time.)
I liked them both. More I cannot say, as my boss and I were discussing what we need to do in April for the two teams I run and I thought it would have been a bit suspect if I took detailed notes on my beer at the same time.
I liked the beers, though, and would have gone back for more if I'd had time. Between our leisurely time at New Heights, our lunch at Puckett's BBQ, and Nashville traffic, we got about 35 minutes to quaff our two pints before heading back to the hotel to clean up before our off-site dinner. (Wednesdays are always a hoot at this conference; Thursdays I always feel bad for the people who have to present at 8:30 am.)
Like I said yesterday, if I ever spend time in Nashville again, I'll come back to both of these places, plus three others I found. Meanwhile, I still have about 25 more breweries to visit in Chicago...
Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside
Televisions? Avoidable
Serves food? Full menu
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes
Welcome to a special stop on the Brews and Choos project.
Brewery: New Heights Brewing, 928 Rep. John Lewis Way S., Nashville, Tenn.
4 stars
Train line: Wego Train, Riverfront Nashville
Time from Chicago: 2 hours
Distance from station: 2 km
I had the option to go to two breweries and get some good ol' Southern BBQ as the team-building activity during my work conference this past week. We started with New Heights Brewing, which I had already identified as a possible Brews & Choos destination before I knew which breweries the field trip would visit.
Because the tour included 40 or so technology professionals (plus our head of HR), and because many of those people were English and thus born with two livers, the brewery created a standard flight for all of us. We started with the Nothing Fancy blonde ale (5.6%, 20 IBU), then the Coffee & Cream "coffee and vanilla cream ale with Crema coffee" (5.6%, 20 IBU), then the house IPA (6.9%, 101 IBU), and finished with the Navel Gazer Imperial stout (9.2%, 65 IBU).
I took notes in a draft email that I apparently deleted before copying. Dammit.
I did like all four of them, though I have to say, 101 IBUs really gets your attention. The Navel Gazer has a particularly inspired name, because after two pints, you will be gazing at your navel.
I went more than half a century without spending the night in Nashville, so it's not likely I'll be back. But if you visit Nashville, New Heights is worth a stop.
Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Yes
Televisions? Avoidable
Serves food? BYO
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes
I completed two surveys related to my work conference this week. The first one included the question, "To confirm that you are still reading this, please select 'Disagree.'" The second one assigned point values to the multiple-choice questions, so that the three items I answered "Somewhat OK" instead of "Excellent" brought my grade down to a B-minus.
These are the kinds of things that make one wonder how valuable the survey data really is.
Meanwhile, I've got a ton of things to do today, including getting Cassie her lunchtime walk before a line of storms comes through around noon.
More later, including two Brews & Choos reviews from Nashville.
Having the morning free, and having a lot of cool air and sun, I took a quick stroll around Nashville. I'll have more later, but for now, here's the Tennessee State Capitol, apparently under construction:
Of course, since the Tennessee General Assembly has a well-Gerrymandered 75-24 Republican majority, I would expect they're actually deconstructing the Capitol. But whatever.
I also passed by Riverfront Station, the downtown terminus of Nashville's adorable little 6-times-a-day toy commuter train:
It may be a really sad attempt to have real public transportation, but it's also a train station, meaning there are Brews & Choos-qualified breweries right by my hotel. I'm planning to visit one today. You'll have to wait until at least Friday for the reviews, though. And also for better photo editing.
Workers have started demolishing three historic buildings along Sheffield Ave just north of Addison, including Cubs Rooftops building at 3631, the location of the annual reminder of the Chicago Cubs' dismal record:
One of the most iconic buildings in Wrigleyville is being torn down just weeks before Opening Day.
Demolition is underway at 3631 N. Sheffield Ave., one of three historic Wrigley Field rooftop buildings slated to be torn down and replaced with a 29-unit apartment building.
A contractor at the site said the demolition, which began earlier this month, is expected to take up to another week to complete.
Longtime Chicago Cubs fans will recognize the trio of properties at 3627, 3631 and 3633 N. Sheffield Ave. as having housed the famous Torco billboard on its roof and as well as the property that became famous for its “Eamus Catuli” sign — loosely translated from Latin as “Let’s go Cubs.”
The owners of the three buildings spent a lot of money to build those grandstands, plus all the back-and-forth with the Cubs over revenue sharing. I expect the new building will have seating too. But unless incentives have suddenly changed in the real-estate industry, it won't have the charm of these old 3-flats:
And let's not forget, the Anno Catuli sign once looked like this:
Let's see what the developers put up, and if they bring the sign back. History deserves better.
The Post's Monica Hesse watched the entire first season of "The Apprentice," now streaming on Amazon. Pray you never have to do this:
A refresher, since it’s been awhile since “The Apprentice” debuted in 2004. The show was a competition in which the prize was a vague job at the Trump Organization.
Upon this viewing, what surprised me the most is how much this show primed the country to think of Trump as imperial. I cannot stress this enough. Fanfares play when he enters the room. Contestants grovel for his attention. His properties, business deals and business acumen are all touted as “the best” and nobody fact-checks any of this.
But there were signs, I’m telling you. Bad signs....
Like Sam. There is a contestant named Sam, and he is terrible — he falls asleep in the middle of one challenge — and for two straight episodes everyone who works with him tells Trump that he is terrible and needs to be fired. But Sam talks a good suck-uppy game and he looks the part, so Trump keeps letting him stay, and anyway 21 years later Pete Hegseth is our defense secretary.
Or Omarosa. As soon as Sam is gone, Omarosa emerges as the next conniving, two-faced villain, single-handedly torpedoing her team’s success in multiple challenges. This time Trump sees it, too, but does he fire her? No. He fires the people he thought should have stood up to her better. Malevolence isn’t a sin, only weakness, and so here we are today watching Trump and JD Vance push around the Ukrainian president instead of the Ukrainian president’s bully.
“The Apprentice” was corporate cosplay, with decisions made based on what would play well with an audience rather than what would do best in a workplace.
Is there any reason, now, for DOGE to set completely arbitrary and legally contested deadlines for millions of federal workers to decide whether to quit their jobs? Any reason for Trump to fire the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center and appoint himself chair? Any reason for the United States to buy Greenland, which is not for sale, or annex Canada, which is not interested?
It’s government cosplay....
I've said it often: having spent the late 1980s and much of the '90s in New York, I have always considered the OAFPOTUS to be a boorish clown with horrible business skills and a schtick I found grating. It turns out, nothing has really changed except his platform.
Stuff to read:
- Forgetting (or just plain ignorant) that we have a Coast Guard better suited to the task of guarding our coasts, the OAFPOTUS has ordered the guided missile destroyer USS Gravely to the Texas-Mexico border.
- The OAFPOTUS and the Clown Prince of X, apparently not seeing the connection between weather forecasters and weather forecasts, have illegally fired 10% of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff just as a violent tornado outbreak killed 40 people in the Midwest and South.
- The administration's attacks on universities fit the Orban plan of creating a failed democracy, so naturally the OAFPOTUS has doubled down on them.
- Krugman points out that all of the above administration malfeasance has had a depressing effect on the US economy by reducing demand for our key exports, not least of which includes the $50 billion foreigners used to spend to get American educations. (He also has a good, long explanation of how inflation works, if you subscribe.)
- Surprising no one but still an illegally-targeted exercise of Federal power, the Federal Communications Commission has demanded to see the contracts between a number of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System stations and their acknowledged donors.
- The Waterbeach development outside Cambridge, England, has a new car-free housing complex—though it's still a 10 kilometer walk from the nearest railway station.
- Pilot Patrick Smith wishes the public would have a better sense of perspective about the safety of air travel, while acknowledging that it has seemed a bit rockier than usual.
Finally, thanks to reduced funding and deferred maintenance, the Chicago El has seen slow zones balloon from 13% of its tracks to 30% since 2019. Fully 70% of the Forest Park branch has reduced speed limits, making the trip from there to downtown take over an hour. But sure, let's keep funding below the minimum needed to function, and keep the CTA, Metra, and Pace all separate so they can each fail in their own ways.
After our gorgeous weather Sunday and Monday, yesterday's cool-down disappointed me a bit. But we have clear-ish skies and lots of sun, which apparently will persist until Friday night. I'm also pleased to report that we will probably have a good view of tomorrow night's eclipse, which should be spectacular. I'll even plan to get up at 1:30 to see totality.
Elsewhere in the world, the OAFPOTUS continues to explore the outer limits of stupidity (or is it frontotemporal dementia?):
- No one has any idea what the OAFPOTUS's economic plan is, though Republicans seem loath to admit that's because he hasn't got one.
- Canada and the EU, our closest friends in the world since the 1940s, have gotten a bit angry with us lately. Can't think why.
- Paul Krugman frets that while he "always considered, say, Mitch McConnell a malign influence on America, while I described Paul Ryan as a flimflam man, I never questioned their sanity... But I don’t see how you can look at recent statements by Donald Trump and Elon Musk without concluding that both men have lost their grip on reality."
- On the same theme, Bret Stephens laments that "Democracy dies in dumbness."
- ProPublica describes a horrifying recording of Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek's meeting with senior SSA officials last week in which he demonstrated why the OAFPOTUS pulled him from a terminal job as "the ultimate faceless bureaucrat" to head the agency. (Some people have greatness thrust upon 'em?)
- Molly White sees "no public good" for a "strategic bitcoin reserve," but is too polite to call the idea a load of thieving horseshit.
- Author John Scalzi threads the needle on boycotting billionaires.
- Writing for StreetsBlog Chicago, Steven Vance argues that since the city has granted parking relief to almost every new development in the past few years, why not just get rid of parking minimums altogether?
Finally, in a recent interview with Monica Lewinsky, Molly Ringwald said that John Hughes got the idea for Pretty in Pink while out with her and her Sixteen Candles co-stars at Chicago's fabled Kingston Mines. Cool.