The Daily Parker

Cassie and I survived our 20-minute, -8°C walk a few minutes ago. For some reason I feel like I need a nap. Meanwhile:

• James Fallows remembers his old boss Jimmy Carter, and puts his presidency in perspective for the younger generations.
• Paul Krugman reminds the Republican Party that California contributes more to the country's GDP than any other state, so maybe cut the crap threatening to withhold disaster relief?
• ProPublica goes "inside the movement to redirect billions of taxpayer dollars to private religious schools."
• New Republic digs into why these same fundamentalist Christians hate ideas so much.
• Illinois legislators recently took a tour of Munich's and Berlin's transit systems, both of which I have personally found to be better than Chicago's, though London's and Vienna's are a bit better in my view. (And then there's Tokyo's, which has no equal I've encountered...)
• In much more enjoyable transit news, Chicago Transit Authority CEO Dorval Carter finally plans to retire, opening the door to someone to take over who actually likes public transit.
• NASA is weighing (quite literally) whether to retrieve some rocks it has collected on Mars.

Finally, I want to end with Ross Douthat's latest (subscriber-only) newsletter, taking Vivek Ramaswamy to task for suggesting American kids need more intense competition in order for the US to stay ahead of its peers. I'll just focus on one paragraph, where he suggests Ramaswamy's end goal may not be a place we really want to go:

[T]he atmosphere he’s describing in South Korea, the frantic cycle of educational competition, isn’t just a seeming contributing factor to that country’s social misery; it’s almost certainly a contributing factor to the literal collapse of South Korea’s population, the steep economic rise that Munger describes giving way to an equally steep demographic decline. So for societies no less than individuals, it appears possible to basically burn out on competition, to cram-school your way to misery, pessimism and collapse — something that any advocate of intensified meritocratic competition would do well to keep in mind.

As I have more and more contact with kids born after 1995, I find so many of them who either have flat personalities, an inability to function independently, and an alarming lack of emotional resilience, or who have vitality, intelligence, and an ability to function in the world but no ambition. The last 30 years have crushed the elite-adjacent kids whose parents want them to enter the elite, whatever they think "elite" means. As a kid who traveled alone on public transit to Downtown Chicago at age 7, and managed to get from O'Hare security to LAX security without help by age 8, I feel sorry for these incompetent, despondent children.

We've gotten about 4 cm of snow so far today, with more coming down until this evening. Cassie loves it; I have mixed feelings. At least the temperature has gone up a bit, getting up to -0.6°C for the first time since around this time on Monday.

Elsewhere:

• Federal Judge Aileen Cannon (R-SDFL) got overruled again, this time after her corrupt effort to block Special Counsel Jack Smith from releasing his report on January 6th.
• George Will bemoans Congress ceding so much of its authority to the office of the President, especially given who will take that office in ten days.
• Just three corrupt Chicago cops will cost the city almost $34 million in settlements, making me wonder why we don't pay those settlements out of the police pension fund.
• Pamela Paul objects to historians opining about politics, which is actually one of the things they've always done.
• Five years after the pandemic began, we still haven't gotten back in the habit of being out in public, according to Derek Thompson at The Atlantic.

Finally, Maplewood Brewing has started expanding its Logan Square taproom into the other half of the building it occupies. I don't get there often, but I enjoy going back. Can't wait to see what their restaurant looks like when it's done. I also need to get to Cherry Circle Room or the CAA Drawing Room soon, as it looks like the management transition from Land & Sea to Boka may change some things.

In case you weren't frustrated enough:

• Paul Krugman outlines all the ways Republicans are trying to enrich themselves at your expense by privatizing everything.
• Jeff Atwood worries that we may lose sight of the American Dream.
• Author Paul Theroux warns that expatriation has its own set of challenges.
• Charles Marohn believes that flooding the market with cheap homes in every neighborhood can end homelessness and reduce housing costs for everyone else.

And finally, a new report says that Chicago has the second-worst road traffic in the world, behind only Istanbul, Türkiye, with 102 hours per year wasted in traffic. That doesn't mean 102 hours traveling, it means 102 hours over and above nominal travel times from point A to point B. For comparison, I spent 113 hours total commuting to work last year.

Despite getting back to a relative normal in 2023, 2024 seemed to revert back to how things went in 2020—just without the pandemic. Statistically, though, things remained steady, for the most part:

• I posted 480 times on The Daily Parker, 20 fewer than in 2023 and 17 below the long-term median. January and July had the most posts (48) and April and December the fewest (34). The mean of 40.0 was slightly lower than the long-term mean (41.34), with a standard deviation of 5.12, reflecting a mixed posting history this year.
  
• Flights went up slightly, to 17 segments and 25,399 flight miles (up from 13 and 20,541), the most of either since 2018:
  
• I visited 3 countries (Germany, the UK, and France) and 5 US states (Washington, North Carolina, Arizona, California, Texas). Total time traveling: 189 hours (up from 156).
• Cassie got 369 hours of walks (down from 372) and at least that many hours of couch time.
• Fitness numbers for 2024: 4,776,451 steps and 4,006 km (average: 13,050 per day), up from 4.62m steps and 3,948 km in 2023. Plus, I hit my step goal 343 times (341 in 2023). I also did my second-longest walk ever on October 19th, 43.23 km.
• Driving went way down. My car logged only 3,812 km (down from 5,009) on 54 L of gasoline (down from 87), averaging 1.4 L/100 km (167 MPG). I last filled up April 8th, and I still have half a tank left. Can I make it a full year without refueling?
• Total time at work: 1,807 hours at my real job (down from 1,905) and 43 hours on consulting and side projects, including 841 hours in the office (up from 640), plus 114 hours commuting (up from 91). For most of the summer we had 3-days-a-week office hours, but starting in November, that went back to 1 day a week.
• The Apollo Chorus consumed 225 hours in 2024, with 138 hours rehearsing and performing (cf. 247 hours in 2023).

In all, fairly consistent with previous years, though I do expect a few minor perturbations in 2025: less time in the office, less time on Apollo, and more time walking Cassie.

Welcome to a revisit to #5 on the Brews and Choos project.

Distillery: 28 Mile Vodka, 454 Sheridan Rd., Highwood, Ill.
Train line: Metra Union Pacific North, Highwood
Time from Chicago (Ogilvie): 52 minutes, zone 4
Distance from station: 300 m

After Amtrak effectively cancelled our day trip to Milwaukee on Friday and meeting a third friend up there, my Brews & Choos buddy and I met the other friend in Highwood instead. We ultimately met up at Broken Tee Brewing, but we had an hour to kill while the third friend drove down from Wisconsin, so we went to 28 Mile Vodka.

I'm happy to report that Brews & Choos stop #5 is still going strong, with some innovative drinks and new spirits. I had a flight of two gins and two bourbons; my B&CB had a smoky Old Fashioned that we both thought was dangerously delicious.

Also of note was the manager's kindness letting us in an hour before opening to get out of the gloomy drizzle. He admitted that the distillery's website shows a 3pm opening time, but for the winter they actually open at 4pm.

The kitchen opened right as we were leaving to meet our third friend, so we didn't try anything on the menu. We wanted to. And perhaps we will in the near future.

28 Mile Vodka remains a "Would Go Back" Brews & Choos stop.

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? No
Televisions? None
Serves food? Yes, elevated
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

I had planned to go to Milwaukee for a quick day trip yesterday to further the Brews & Choos Project. Two friends were going to meet me at the Public Market, then go to two breweries and a distillery in the five hours between trains.

Alas, after everyone had boarded the 1:05 Hiawatha, Amtrak got all of us off the train and cancelled it because of—no kidding—a flat wheel. We could have gone on the (now-overcrowded) 3:05, but we just decided to forget it and meet one of the friends up in Highwood.

So I'll have a revisited Brews & Choos review of 28 Mile Vodka later this weekend, but no reviews of Milwaukee breweries until next year.

Because Christmas came on a Wednesday*, and my entire UK-based team have buggered off until Monday in some cases and January 6th in others, I'm off for the long weekend. Tomorrow my Brews & Choos buddy and I will hit three places in Milwaukee, which turns out to be closer to downtown Chicago by train than a few stations on the Union Pacific North and Northwest lines.

Meanwhile, read some of these:

• John Adams had some nuanced and deep thoughts about aristocracy and oligarchy that we should keep in mind as the OAFPOTUS forms his cabinet of billionaires, for billionaires.
• Despite my recurring reminder not to give the OAFPOTUS's verbal flatulence any mind at all, Krugman dismantles the argument that nations gain from conquest in the post-industrial age.
• New research adds weight to the theory that our ancestors were prey, not predators, with implications for understanding how we react to threats.
• Krebs is warning about a new scam that uses Google Forms to convince you that the attack is really an official Google security action.

Enjoy the weekend. I'll have three Brews & Choos Reviews up before the end of the year, plus the 2025 sunrise chart for Chicago.

* That was also The Daily Parker's 9,500th post since the "modern" blog began in November 2005.

The Chicago Department of Planning and Development has proposed changing the zoning rules along a stretch of Broadway between Montrose and Devon to increase its density while simultaneously reducing its car-oriented ugliness:

The move could jumpstart housing construction, support local businesses and create a streamlined and consistent process for development in a part of town that has seen increased developer attention, city officials have said.

A driving factor in the rezoning is the CTA’s Red Line overhaul between the Bryn Mawr and Lawrence stations, city planner Danielle Crider said. The project is expected to be completed on time in 2025, at which point the CTA will have four properties along Broadway it acquired for construction and will no longer need, making it prime land for redevelopment.

Normally, things like a drive-thru, gas stations or other auto-related businesses could also be developed under a C1-5 zoning, but the planning department would also create a “pedestrian street designation” on the areas with this zoning to prevent certain car-oriented businesses, according to materials from the meeting.

A pedestrian street designation means curb cutouts for driveways are prohibited, parking must be from the alley and the building’s exterior must be on the sidewalk — effectively barring strip malls — according to the department. It’s intended to “preserve and enhance pedestrian oriented shopping districts,” but won’t affect strip malls along Broadway that already exist, materials show.

Naturally, people living in less-dense areas near Broadway like Lakewood-Balmoral are yelling NIMBY. That said, this sounds like an excellent proposal, and a good way to use the Red/Purple El reconstruction to the city's benefit.

I also love that Block Club Chicago pays attention to these things. I've let my Chicago Tribune subscription lapse because the hedge fund that owns it couldn't give two shakes about the neighborhoods near mine.

The Library of Congress has named Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 24 other films to the National Film Registry this week. A quick view of the list tells me I've only seen 5 of them, so I need to start watching more movies.

In other news:

• Former Chicago mayor and outgoing US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel suggests some ways the Democratic Party can get back in the saddle.
• The Chicago City Council finally passed its 2025 budget, a $17.3 bn mess that only got 27 out of 50 votes, and then only because it doesn't have a property tax increase. And we're still paying for police tort settlements out of the general fund instead of the police pension fund, where they should come from.
• Chicago's Christkindlmarket in Daley Center Plaza has been named "the most overcrowded holiday market in the US," in part because the overflow Christkindlmarket at Wrigley Field got cancelled this year due to a single hockey game next week.

Finally, Illinois could, if it wanted to, redirect $1.5 billion in Federal highway funds to mass-transit projects in the Chicago area under President Biden's 2021 Covid relief plan. Unfortunately, a lot of the state would prefer to build more useless highways, so this probably won't happen.

We have warm (10°C) windy (24 knot gusts) weather in Chicago right now, and even have some sun peeking out from the clouds, making it feel a lot more like late March than mid-December. Winds are blowing elsewhere in the world, too:

• The German government collapsed today after Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in the Bundestag.
• People think the OAFPOTUS transition team are doing a great job for the simple reason that most people don't follow this kind of thing.
• Josh Marshall points out that it makes logical sense that huge corporations would sell out their news divisions in what he calls "the great fluffening" ahead of the OAFPOTUS re-taking office, though it does mean that corruption has already gotten to 1870s levels again.
• Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland (Lib.—University-Rosedale) has resigned in spectacular fashion just hours before the government's fall economic statement, causing embarrassment to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
• LetsEncrypt has rolled out a new service that can update your TLS certificates every 6 days. This means, if your site has a breach, the attackers can do far less damage than they might if they had 90 days to do it.
• Amtrak's $400 million renovation of Chicago's Union Station will begin early next year, with new platforms, new waiting rooms, and many smaller improvements.
• Small towns with deep-sea ports have lost their patience with the ever-larger cruise ships that stop by from time to time.

Finally, the Washington Post says I read 628 stories this year on 22 different topics. That's less than 2 a day. I really need to step up my game.