In my previous post, I noted the low median income in the census tract surrounding the Sedgwick stop on the Brown and Purple Lines. That the median income in that part of the city would be less than $20k went against my own experience of Chicago—as well as my prejudices about the North Side. How [...]
Pete sent out this New Yorker interactive web thingy that handsomely redraws each MTA line as, instead, a graph of median income rising and falling as the trains move between poorer and richer neighborhoods. I figured it would take only a few hours to throw something similar for Chicago, and I was right. Below are [...]
I voted today in two separate elections in two separate continents. So that’s “often.” Both election days are also in the future, so that’s “early.” So hooray for me for getting my democracy on. The first election was, rather obviously, the US election. I’m still registered in Massachusetts, so I had to send a letter [...]
Vilnius mayor Artūras Zuokas, who is probably best known in the West for driving a tank over a car parked in a bike lane, has consistently put transport at the head of his vision of Vilnius. His first term as mayor featured an effort at introducing a bike-share system (they were all stolen), and his [...]
Continue reading about Vilnius’s newest focus: transport. Vilnius’s newest fail: transport
So I live in Vilnius now. Specifically, I live at the base of the north face of Tauro kalnas, which translates to something like “Auroch’s Hill,” on Pamėnkalnio gatvė, which is so named because, apparently, at some point Tauro kalnas was called Pamėnkalnis. The name of the hill sounds old and maybe even mythological—the auroch [...]
Continue reading about Folk etymology in the center of Vilnius
A J&B ad campaign showed up in France a few years ago, and I again saw one of the ads today. The whisky ad features two tag lines. The first, “So British!”, is also how the local press likes to describe Kate Middleton. The second tag line translates to “Born in London, distilled in Scotland.” [...]
My concern trollish ways got the better of me. In my previous post, on Mélenchon as a pedagogue, I expressed worry that he was serving to bring workers over from the Front national to the Front de gauche only to later have troops available to follow Mélenchon into pushing for a Hollande victory over Sarkozy [...]
I already tackled Megan (now) Draper’s (winning) French-Canadianness when she sang “Il était un petit navire” to the Draperinos back at the end of season 4 of Mad Men. Further, the internet already melted down over the subsequent French song Jessica Paré chose to sing for the show, so I don’t need to touch on [...]
I was in New York this weekend, and I decided to spend part of Friday afternoon at Zuccotti Park. I had been told that there was nothing going on there, so I expected to see ruins of a political movement in tatters, the kind of romantic fantasy of an unexperienced nostalgia that has yielded us, [...]
A day or two ago, a short typed up note appeared in the elevator ин my building. Usually, if someone has something to sell (like a chair), they will use the bulletin boards on the ground floor. Inside the elevator, the space is more regulated. But this man was persistent: Cherche jeune demoiselle douce et [...]