Events

In a move that brings progressives and libertarians together better than a runaway defense budget, Gotham has banned dogs from bars: Since the health department adopted a letter grade system for bars and restaurants last year, bar owners say, health inspectors are allowing no wiggle room for four-legged patrons. The stricter enforcement is apparently bringing to an end a rich tradition of dog-friendly bars in New York. The health department issued 469 violations for live animals in food-service sites...

In the Public Garden, Boston: 10 May 1986. Kodachrome 64. Exposure unrecorded.

The Economist Gulliver blog makes a good case that media coverage of Irene was appropriate for the threat: Hurricanes are serious business. They have the capacity to cause billions of dollars in damage and kill hundreds or thousands of people. They have political consequences, too—no politician wants to be blamed for a disaster the way President George W. Bush was after Hurricane Katrina. Moreover, it is very unusual for a hurricane to hit America's north-east, where around one sixth of Americans live...

On a school field trip, at an El stop in Chicago: October 1985. Canon AE-1P, Kodachrome 64, exposure unrecorded, probably 80mm, probably here.

Beloit College, just across the Wisconsin line and just outside the Chicago area, puts together a list every year to describe the incoming class of first-years. Last year's list made me cry. This year's list provoked a different emotion, one that I can't quite make out with my age-addled brain: 2. Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents. 12. Amazon has never been just a river in South America. 22. John Wayne Bobbitt has always slept with one eye open. 39. Moderate amounts of red wine...

Breaking news: Nearly 300,000 New York City residents were told Friday to get out of their homes in a first-ever mandatory evacuation as officials ordered an unprecedented shutdown of the city’s mass transit system for Saturday in advance of Hurricane Irene, raising the prospect of a singular scramble as hundreds of thousands of residents try to get out of the massive storm’s way. Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered an evacuation by 5 p.m. Saturday for low-lying areas that house about 270,000 people....

Hurricane Irene, currently category 2 on the Staffir-Simpson scale, looks like it's heading straight for New York City. Both the NYC and New Jersey emergency management agencies have published maps (pdf) showing the likely flood zones for various categories of hurricanes. They're scary. I used to live in Brooklyn Heights, N.Y., and Hoboken, N.J. Both areas would be affected by a category 1 hurricane. My place in Hoboken, in fact, was only 2 m above sea level. My stuff would probably be OK—I lived on the...

Yesterday I wrote about a criminal trial here in Chicago in which a woman was charged with felony eavesdropping for recording a conversation with two police officers. Under Illinois law, this "crime" carries the same penalties as rape and manslaughter. The law needs to go, whether through repeal (unlikely) or being overturned by a Federal appeals court (more likely). Good news for Tiawanda Moore this afternoon, but bad news for Illinois civil liberties: she got acquitted: [A] Criminal Court jury quickly...

Do you ever eat fish? If so, are you aware that many fisheries are unsustainable, that popular fish species have high incidence of contamination, and that while generally good for you, some sushi can give you heavy metals with your wasabi? For years I've carried around a pocket sustainable seafood guide the Monterey Bay Aquarium publishes semi-annually. Now they've got a smartphone app for both iPhone and Android. No more printing it out on paper! W00t!

Instead of writing a banal post about American Airlines' changes to their million-mile program, here's something one of my co-workers just brought to my attention. A woman is on trial in Illinois for secretly recording a conversation with a cop she alleges was trying to get her to drop a harassment case against another cop. Because the person she recorded was a police officer, however, the crime is a Class 1 felony—the same class that includes second-degree murder[1], rape[2], and carjacking[3]...