The Daily Parker

Illinois' doubling time for Covid-19 cases has increased from 2.1 days to 7.9 days, as of yesterday.

In other news:

• The Times has a complete timeline of how the White House missed all the warnings about the disease until it became too big to lie about.
• George Conway places the blame for Wisconsin's voting fiasco last Tuesday on the state legislature, not on the courts.
• Thirsty? How about a Covid-19–themed drink?
• NPR interviews a psychiatrist about how single people are coping with quarantine.
• Food & Wine accuses GrubHub of gouging restaurants to take advantage of the pandemic.
• Science knows a lot more about what knocked Uranus on its side.

And finally, I'll leave you with this touching performance of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" by its composer, Curt Smith, and his daughter Diva:

An Andy Borowitz bit from last year is making the rounds again: "Trump Comes Out Strongly Against Intelligence." More evidence of why that's true after these two videos. First, the Ohio Department of Health demonstrates social distancing:

Second, the Lincoln Project, a Republican organization headed by George Conway, has put out this ad:

And now the roundup of horror promised above:

• Jonathan Chait points out the obvious hypocrisy behind the president's ranting about mail-in ballots.
• Of course, even the president's allies "know he has failed," and his public whining about the impeachment distracting him kind of reinforce that point.
• Illinois governor JB Pritzker released a report estimating the pandemic may wipe out 15% of the state's budget this year alone.
• Kansas governor Laura Kelly (D) sued the Republican-dominated legislature in the state's supreme court today to reinstate an order against public gatherings overturned by a legislative committee in a party-line vote.
• Parties people held in early March wound up killing people.
• Susan Glasser finds out why the United States—the most powerful nation on Earth—wound up with nurses wearing garbage bags.
• David Rothman in MIT Technology Review says we can stop covid-19 and save the economy.
• Stanford professor Walter Scheidel explains "why the wealthy fear pandemics."
• NBC's Denise Chow shows how the pandemic messes with our flight-or-fight responses.

Finally, 50 years ago today, Paul McCartney announced the Beatles had broken up.

Oh wait: here's another cool video.

Unemployment claims jumped another 6.6 million in the US last week bringing the total reported unemployed to 16.8 million, the largest number of unemployment claims since the 1930s. Illinois saw 200,000 new claims, an all-time record, affecting 1 in 12 Illinois workers. And that's just one headline today:

• The latest figures estimate Illinois will have 1,600 covid-19 deaths by August 4th and that hospitalizations will peak this weekend, a welcome revision of the previous estimate (3,400 deaths and April 20th).
• The hospitality industry saw its worst week ever, with hotel occupancy down 68.5% (to 21.6%) and revenue per available room (RevPAR) down 81.6% to $16.50.
• Washington governor Jay Inslee sounds the alarm over the president's "lack of urgency" contributing to vital equipment shortages and hobbled response efforts.
• The New York Times explains "why Republicans are so afraid of vote-by-mail." Hint: it has nothing to do with retail voter fraud.
• Atlantic media critic Sophie Gilbert calls Netflix's Tiger King "a moral failure."
• Writer Kris Gage predicts breakups (not divorces) will spike once stay-at-home orders relax.
• Mad Magazine caricature artist Mort Drucker has died at 91.
• Did you know that downtown Chicago almost got built in what is now the South Chicago community area?

After all of that, why don't you watch this adorable video of skunks chattering away as they investigate a cyclist?

As we go into the fourth week of mandatory working from home, Chicago may have its warmest weather since October 1st, and I'm on course to finish a two-week sprint at work with a really boring deployment. So what's new and maddening in the world?

• The Trump Administration's chaotic response to the virus includes seizing states' protective equipment and giving it to private distributors, thus making states bid on stuff they've already obtained, sometimes for free.
• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics communications director Jordan Libowitz holds up Jared Kushner as an example of literally everything that can go wrong with nepotism.
• Via Calculated Risk, Oregon Office of Economic Analysis economist Josh Lehner attempts to predict how the recovery will go.
• David Remnick describes what New York City is like without New Yorkers.
• Richard Florida examines the class divide in who's exposed to the virus.
• New Zealand didn't just "contain" Covid-19; they set out to eliminate it.
• Wildlife biologist Caroline Van Hemert thinks about what caribou have taught her about isolation.

And finally, two big gyros manufacturers, Kronos and Grecian Delight, are merging. Kind of like all the lamb and stuff that merges to form gyros.

Enjoy the weather, Chicago. The cold returns Thursday.

More than 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance last week (including 178,000 in Illinois), following the 3.3 million who filed the week before. This graphic from The Washington Post puts these numbers in perspective:

Hotel occupancy has crashed as well, down 67% year-over-year, with industry analysts predicting the worst year on record.

In other pandemic news:

• Testing in Illinois shows about 20% of the 34,000 people tested have come up positive for SARS-CoV-2, which is about the same as national results, but we still lag behind other places in the numbers of tests performed.
• As Zoom becomes more popular for social-distancing-appropriate social gatherings, its inherent vulnerabilities and lack of transparency have come to the fore.
• NBC has a handy map showing lockdowns by state. As of this writing, the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas have no order issued. The governor of Arkansas went on NPR's 1A this morning to demonstrate his disdain for thinking things through.
• Another Republican said the quiet part out loud yesterday: Georgia House Speaker David Ralston complained that universal vote-by-mail in the state will help Democrats get elected.
• Continuing the theme, their response to COVID-19 has demonstrated clearly that the Republican Party is almost entirely responsible for gridlock in Washington.
• Top chefs who pivoted their Michelin-starred restaurants to take out and delivery are deciding it's not worth the risk.

Finally, unrelated to the coronavirus but definitely related to our natural environment, the Lake Michigan/Huron system recorded its third straight month of record levels in March. The lake is a full meter above the long-term average and 30 cm above last year's alarming levels.

Goldman Sachs released an economic outlook this morning predicting GDP growth of -9% in Q1 and -34% in Q2, along with 15% unemployment by June 30th. Both Calculated Risk and Talking Points Memo believe the recovery will take longer than the slowdown. In other words, we won't have a V or an L but probably something more like a U with a wide bottom.

I looked at some figures of my own. Looking at 4-week moving averages, as of Sunday my spending on groceries is up 37% from the period between January 27th and February 23rd, which includes a massive grocery bill for a party I threw on February 15th. But my spending on eating out is down 46%, and on lunch (I buy lunch nearly every day when I work downtown) is down 36%. And I have not taken public transit since March 16th, saving $45 a week right there.

I haven't stopped buying food from local restaurants entirely because I want them to be around in three months. Just, I get a lot less take-out food (every 5th lunch and every 5th dinner, staggered), and I don't buy take-out alcohol. (Of course, a local bar has a special deal of a fried chicken sandwich and old fashioned cocktail for $20.) I also have my dog walker coming in twice a week because I want him to be around in two months. His other job is that he plays jazz sax, so without the few walks I and other customers of the walking service send him, he'd have no income at all.

Obviously the uptick in groceries means I'm cooking more. Like last night, when I made my mom's tuna fish casserole recipe, and it came out like I remember it from childhood:

Just a few articles of note today:

• The City of Chicago urges residents to call 311 to report non-essential business remaining open.
• President Trump admitted on "Fox & Friends" this morning that adopting common-sense election reforms would mean "you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." (Unless, I suppose, they changed their policies to match the mainstream, right?)
• The Times reports on General Motors' efforts to produce 2,000 ventilators a month (an order-of-magnitude change from now) even as the president slagged the company on Twitter.
• Jennifer Rubin points out that "Trump's narcissism has never been more dangerous."
• Richard Florida examines how society will need to change after the current stay-at-home phase of the pandemic passes.

And finally, London took advantage of reduced traffic on March 24th to give the Abbey Road zebra crossing a much-overdue paint job.

And now, Adult Storytime brings you Brenda's Beaver Needs a Barber:

Welcome to stop #25 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Lunar Brewing Co., 54 E. St. Charles Rd., Villa Park
Train line: Union Pacific West, Villa Park
Time from Chicago: 36 minutes (Zone D)
Distance from station: 900 m

Sometimes you find good beer in unexpected places. Lunar Brewing in Villa Park appears as any other dive bar off a suburban stroad, but they have brewed their own beer since 1996.

I didn't have a lot of time so I tried only one of the six house beers on draft, the Scottish Ale:

I liked it. It had good malty caramel flavors, with a smooth, sweet finish.

I asked about food and dogs. No to dogs, because the village only allows them outside. They have a BYOF policy but, if you want something cheap and quick, "the best frozen pizzas you can buy," according to a longtime patron who was rolling his own cigarettes with a small rolling machine at one of the tables.

I appreciate a good dive bar, but I'm not sure I'd hike out to Villa Park to visit this one again.

On my way out, I got a good shot of the local Metra station:

Beer garden? No
Dogs OK? No
Televisions? 2, unavoidable
Serves food? BYO, or frozen pizza
Would hang out with a book? Maybe
Would hang out with friends? Maybe
Would go back? No

The governor ordered everyone to stay at home only a few days ago, and yet it seems like much longer. I started working from home three weeks ago, initially because my entire team were traveling, and then for safety. My company turned off all our badges yesterday so I couldn't go back even if I wanted to. And I find myself planning meals a week out because I find it nearly impossible to cook small amounts of food. (Sample entries: Monday dinner, shrimp in garlic, butter, and wine sauce with wild rice; Tuesday lunch, leftover grilled chicken with wild rice. The shrimp were delicious, by the way.)

It doesn't help that the President and Senate Republicans are trying to turn this whole thing into a corporate giveaway. Some other lowlights:

• About 50 people had a birthday party in Westport, Conn., on March 5th, and then spread COVID-19 all over the world.
• The International Olympic Committee and Japan have postponed the 2020 Tokyo games for a year.
• India has ordered its 1.3 billion residents to stay home.
• Michelle Goldberg says "death panels" are coming for real this time.
• David Remnick thinks the virus has "shattered Trump's serene confidence."
• Do we need another article about how "Trump doesn't care about you?" TNR and Matt Ford think so.
• Data aggregator UnaCast has a "social distancing scoreboard" showing county-level information from mobile phone data about who's keeping socially distant and who's not.

But in one bit of good news, China announced an end to the two-month lockdown of Hubei province a few hours from now. Could we also start getting back to normal mid-May?

And finally, enjoy some scampi: