Tone down your own rhetoric, President Trump

Political commentators are offering their insights after yesterday’s killing of Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk. Trump blamed the rhetoric of “the radical left” for political violence, saying, “[I]t is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”

Is he forgetting his own words?

Heat and a bum knee make for a disappointing summer

The late August cool spell has been a welcome reprieve from Chicago’s oppressively hot, humid summer.

Multiple heat waves dogged us in June, July, and early August, and the heat index — the temperature-humidity combination indicating how hot it actually feels to us — neared 110 degrees some days. It was so hot the record overnight low temperature was broken four times in late June. Canada sent us smoke from wildfires, temporarily making our air quality the worst in the world. 

We were advised to stay inside so often it might as well have been winter. As of mid-August, I had not gone to one outdoor concert. Most summers, I enjoy my balcony a lot. This year I’d step out and immediately return to air conditioning. 

It wasn’t just the weather that kept me indoors, however. It was also a knee constrained by arthritis. Maybe I should be grateful for their simultaneous occurrence. It might have felt worse to be kept in by my knee in fine weather, or by the heat when I was primed to be out. 

What's your accent? Quiz may surprise you.

While training for a volunteer tutoring role, I came across a quiz that seemed like a fun break from sight words and writing prompts. Language learning site Babbel identifies where you’re from based on answers to 15 questions about pronunciation and word choices. 

It told me I’m from the Pacific Northwest. I’ve spent no more than a week there and all but four years in Illinois and Wisconsin.