Events

Just when you thought it was September, along comes more hot weather. Chicago officially hit 32°C for the 46th time this year, putting us one away from tying the record number of days above that temperature in recorded Chicago history. Can we please have autumn now?

I've just finished Jane Jacobs' foundational work on urban planning. I first came across the book in 2010, started reading it in May, then put it down and picked it up a few times. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published 51 years ago, Jacobs demolished the philosophy of urban planning that had prevailed since the 1920s. The Cabrini Green housing projects, massively disruptive road-building like the Dan Ryan and Congress Expressways, and a way of top-down analysis that looked at...

Beloit College's Mindset List has me thinking: what will future lists look like? Some ideas: The 2024 List The Class of 2024 were born in 2002. They never saw Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Rogers on live TV. The World Trade Center has never existed. There has always been an American military presence in Afghanistan. Monica Lewinsky means as much to them as Christine Keeler meant to their parents. The 2034 List The Class of 2034 were born in 2012. Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, John Hughes, and Brittany Murphy...

Clearing out the ballast: Despite the initial forecasts, Hurricane Isaac's remnants missed Chicago. Beloit College, just outside Rockford, Ill., has published its Class of 2016 Mindset. Since 1998 they've published a list of facts about the way incoming first-years think. This year's list includes "Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles" and "A bit of the late Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, has always existed in space." The Economist's Gulliver blog bemoans Tampa's and...

August marked Chicago's 11 straight month of above-normal temperatures: [A] string of warmer than normal readings never before observed here. Meteorological summer itself is to finish as the third-warmest in 142 years of weather records here. Not surprisingly, the season’s been a sunnier than usual one producing 76% of its possible sun—more than summer’s usual 66% here. The Climate Prediction Center forecasts an above-normal autumn as well. Good thing the election is about empty chairs at empty tables...

Parker came home with me six years ago today. Here he is a few minutes ago, wondering why we were outside but not walking anywhere: And, of course, here he his six years ago:

Federal judge Peter Economus ruled today that a Republican law to curtail in-person early voting, in which people can vote in Ohio up until the Monday before election day, was unconstitutional: The law had made an exception allowing for in-person early voting over that final weekend for military personnel, voters who fell under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act, or UOCAVA. Supporters of the law said that eliminating early voting over those final three days could hurt those voters...

American Airlines and US Airways announced this morning that they've signed a non-disclosure agreement, a concrete step towards merging the corporations: The non-disclosure agreement also means the companies won't be providing more announcements regarding the status of discussions until there's a merger deal or they call off talks, the airlines said. The airline companies said they would work in "close collaboration" and "good faith" to evaluate a merger, including working with the creditors committee...

I can't tell whether South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham was speaking plainly or criticizing his party's tin ear when he said yesterday, "We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term." The Washington Post puts this in context: Exit polls from 2008 showed that 90 percent of GOP voters were white, a homogeneity that has been consistent for more than 30 years, even as the percentage of the electorate that is white has fallen. Nonwhite voters favored Obama over...

United Airlines will start flying the airplane on its Chicago to Houston route this fall: The first 787 Chicago flights to Houston will begin Nov. 4 and end Dec. 3. That service will operate six days a week during that time, with the Chicago flight departing at 11:15 a.m. After that, daily service will restart Jan. 4 and run to March 29. Though the initial routes are temporary, United is likely to regularly fly 787s out of O'Hare eventually, especially as it takes delivery of more planes. United will...