A break in the rain

Cassie did, in fact, get a half-hour walk around 2:30, but as I have a 3-hour rehearsal tonight, she won't get another one until about 10:30. Pauvre chienne, je sais. Elle souffre.

Meanwhile, the world continues to spin on its axis:

• Ross Douthat explains how the Clown Prince of X committed "political malpractice."
• Brian Beutler desperately hopes Congressional Democrats will fight the insane White House ballroom as vigorously as they fought Republican gerrymandering.
• Only 20% of Chicago's bridges are in "good" condition, while 16.6% are "poor," compared with 6.7% nationally.
• Historians have cracked a cipher and decoded a secret diplomatic letter from 1498.
• Farmers believe that every orange tree in Florida has an incurable, fatal bacterial disease that has already decreased orange production by 90% in the state.
• The owner of Chicago's Water Tower Place shopping mall will spend $170 million on renovations to try getting people back in the 50-year-old building.

Finally, The New Republic's Win McCormack launched a multi-part series on the midterm elections with the question: "What makes bullies cave?"

My thesis, therefore, is this: Trump is a bloated, pretentious, cowardly bully, and like all bullies he can be made to stand down, and as a matter of fact has already been forced to stand down—in Minneapolis, to be exact, through the actions of its citizenry, as Bruce Springsteen has immortalized them in song.

Consider it a longer version of the TACO theory.