Things that caught our eye while wondering if it's too hot to go outside:
Sweet Home ... Nashville? There was plenty in Elle's profile of reality-show-villian turned quarterback's-wife Kristin Cavallari, to make reporter Heather Cherone roll her eyes. If the soft focus pictures of her artfully toy-strewn mansion in Nashville — with 10.5 bathrooms, naturally — wasn't enough to trigger your gag reflex, there was plenty to leave a bad taste in your mouth. Cavallari dissed Chicago — where the Chicago Bears pay her husband Jay Cutler (described as "an overgrown frat king" by author Justine Harman) oodles of money to toss around a ball — by saying the Cutlers plan to settle down in Nashville after Cutler's playing days are over. "Chicago's just not home," Cavallari said. Well, O.K. then.
Ubi Est Mea: Chicago tops the list for the most corrupt American city in the most corrupt state in the Economist. The article points to the arrest-rate for politicians that comes to almost one a week and the culture is now to just accept that public servants are crooks. Sam Cholke is reading the long road it took to get to the top, taking years of bribes and backroom deals, which Mike Royko dubbed "Ubi Est Mea," or where's mine?
Intergalactic tourism: A map developed by plotting out more than 90,000 reports of UFOs (dating back to 1905) shows that the center of activity is...us? "Smack dab over Illinois is a dense zone of unexplained encounters," says Citylab. The creator of the map, Max Galka, says his initial thought was that it might have something to do with O'Hare but that was ruled out when looking at activity around other big airports. Citylab lists some of the bigger sightings, including a massive one in suburban Tinley Park. Senior editor Andrew Herrmann wonders if this might have anything to do with George Lucas wanting to put his Star Wars museum here...
Everbody uses O'Hare. Maybe even space aliens.
