Events

Sullivan has a scathing piece about the Republicans shutting down the government again. And closer to home, apparently Chicago has phantom El trains that drive themselves right into other trains. But yesterday's Atlantic Cities piece on bike-share etiquette is much more enjoyable to think about than either of those: The central ethos is built into the name. "The whole point of it is it’s bike share, it’s not bike rental," says Kim Reynolds, the office and administrative manager in Washington for Alta...

Baseball in Chicago ended yesterday as both the Cubs and the other team lost to whomever they were playing. The Cubs ended the season 66-96; the South Siders, 63-99. Here's the miserable Cubs season in a single graph: So I was shocked to find gambling in this establishment Dale Sveum got fired: Sveum's dismissal comes 13 days after team president Theo Epstein declined to give Sveum, 49, a vote of confidence despite saying there were "no alarm bells to ring" regarding the manager. Epstein said Sveum's...

I was going to post about the Cubs, who just ended the 2013 season a few hours ago, but then I saw James Fallows' clear and concise takedown of the pernicious notion that the impending shutdown of the U.S. Government is anything other than a Republican Party failure: In short, we have a faction making historically unprecedented demands -- give us everything, or we stop the government and potentially renege on the national debt. And it is doing so less than a year after its party lost the presidency...

New York magazine's Ann Friedman explains why she did: New York is increasingly a city for people who are already on top, not for those looking to establish themselves. I've always been partial to the friendly guy who doesn’t know how hot he really is (Chicago) or the surprisingly intelligent, sexy stoner (Los Angeles) as opposed to the dude who thinks he’s top of the list, king of the hill, A-number-one. In an excerpt from Goodbye to All That adapted for BuzzFeed, Ruth Curry describes the heady...

Now 10 days into the Divvy experiment, I have some data. Since receiving my Divvy key on the 17th, I've taken 17 Divvy trips of between 6 and 46 minutes. (The 46 minutes included waiting 15 minutes at a station for a space to open up.) A Divvy subscription costs $75 per year. The 17 trips I've taken just the past two weeks would have cost $38.25 on public transit. Or, since my average trip is around 14 minutes, it could be the equivalent of about $73-80 in cab fares. Obviously, I've taken Divvy instead...

In Chicago, we take these things seriously: Not since October 2011 have four consecutive 100% sunny days occurred in Chicago. Through Thursday, three days of unlimited sun have entered the record books. Our forecast of another day of abundant sun Friday could challenge that record. To date, September’s generated 69% of its possible sun—more than the 64% which is normal! Of course, in a state with a majority of its gross domestic product coming from agriculture, there's a downside: The US Drought Monitor...

No time to post today, so just read this: What the sheer gob-smacking scale of these demands means is that the GOP effectively wants to nullify the last election entirely (except of course for their gerry-mandered, no-popular vote House majority). The staggering thing about this party as it now exists is that it views the governance of the other party as always effectively illegitimate. Elections do not matter. Only their agenda matters. No compromise is possible, even when this kind of catastrophic...

The Cubs announced their 2014 schedule a few days ago. Assuming it holds up, it looks like the 30-park Geas will next year take me to Cubs away games in Phoenix in July, Denver in August, and Toronto in September. That will leave just four parks (Minneapolis, St. Louis, Texas, and New Yankee) to finish the Geas in 2015.

The Republican party's antics have reminded me of Chicken Little recently. On reflection, I thought a closer analogue really is a book I read when I was five: The Monster at the End of this Book. I won't spoil the ending for you—it was so good I think my dad read it to me about a ZILLION times—except to say that the GOP's gloom-and-doom histrionics about the Affordable Care Act feel similar to the premise of the book. The monster at the end of the book really is [SPOILER!] the Republican Party itself....

Last night my cousin and I went to Wrigley for the last time until next April. We wound up leaving after the 7th. Why? Here's why: In 2012, the Cubs set a franchise record for most losses on the road. On Tuesday, they lost their 50th game at Wrigley Field this season, establishing a club mark in that category. The Friendly Confines have been anything but for the Cubs this year. Rookie Gerrit Cole helped himself with a two-run single, Pedro Alvarez drove in three runs and Jordy Mercer added a solo home...