Just like I call my daughter to the TV to see the Jonas brothers, I call my almost-17-year-old son to stand with me in front of the not-so-wide screen to see Blago. Far from a rock star, more of a curiosity to a teen who listened to his East Coast...
Robert Loerzel | Posted January 6, 2009 | Chicago
A hundred years ago, political tensions were running high in Illinois. Everyone wanted to know the answer to one suspenseful question: Who would be the new U.S. Senator from Illinois?
The struggle to answer that question would stretch on for four years, as charges of bribery and corruption rocked Springfield...
Mark Miller | Posted January 6, 2009 | Media
A question for Conrad Black and David Radler: How can we miss you when you won't go away?
Black is serving six years plus in federal prison for looting millions from Hollinger International, the Canadian-based media empire he founded and built with sidekick Radler back in the 1980s and...
Mike Doyle | Posted January 6, 2009 | Chicago
As I mark my sixth anniversary* as an ex-pat New Yorker living in King Daley's court, I realize this is the first New Year in Chicago that I don't want to be anywhere else. When I first arrived, a post-9/11 psychological refugee, I expected my self-imposed asylum from...
Mark Konkol and Todd Fooks | Posted January 6, 2009 | Chicago
What the chuck is a chuckhole? You'll have to listen to find out. This week, the guys have an exclusive talk with Ray Wu -- the Chicago guy who came up with a special app that turns your iPhone into a personal massager.
Keeping Score sources turned-over secret tapes of...
Tom Geoghegan | Posted January 6, 2009 | Chicago
I'm running for Congress in the Fifth District of Illinois.
As a Chicago lawyer for thirty years, I have fought for working people in the Fifth District and throughout the city. I have represented unions as well as people with no unions to protect them. In plant closings...
Mark Bazer | Posted January 6, 2009 | Chicago
I host a talk show in Chicago at the Hideout called "The Interview Show." Below is video from an interview I did with country musician Robbie Fulks, whose forthcoming release is "50-Voice Doberman." The video also includes a performance by Robbie.
Stanley Kutler | Posted January 6, 2009 | Politics
Understanding the Constitution sometimes is like interpreting the Talmud. Two scholarly readings bring forth three opinions. Article I, Section 5, of the Constitution is rather straightforward: "Each House shall be the judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualification of its own Members. ..." The rest of the sentence involves quorums...
Brett Ashley McKenzie | Posted January 6, 2009 | Chicago
Perhaps it is because the founding fathers of Illinois could not yet fathom corruption of this nature that they did not offer an alternative solution for filling a vacant Senate seat when they ratified our state's first constitution in 1818. Certainly, it would seem placing the governance of such affairs...
Gale Gand | Posted January 5, 2009 | Chicago
When did mediocre start passing for great?
When did we start saying it was just plain OK to lie, or accept lies as truth, or say something's great when it's really just mediocre? No, I'm not talking about the McCain/Palin campaign. I'm talking about good bakeries....
David Hoyt | Posted January 5, 2009 | Chicago
Parking is the gender-bender of urban policy issues. It has the capacity to make free-market Republicans slam their fist on the table in defense of subsidized parking anywhere and anytime, while making social democratic types of a green coloration passionate at the prospect of allowing market-clearing prices for curb parking.
...Ryan Blitstein | Posted January 5, 2009 | Chicago
In November, I voted in Illinois for the first time, having lived in California for much of the past decade. As I pored over the list of candidates on the sample ballot, all I could think was: "Who the hell are all these people?" I barely knew most of these...
Carol Felsenthal | Posted January 5, 2009 | Chicago
Did Roland Burris's business partner, Fred Lebed, have anything to do with Patti Blagojevich landing a full-time job as development director of the Chicago Christian Industrial League?
Lebed, who served on Gov. Rod Blagojevich's transition team, also serves on CCIL's Board of Directors.
The question was raised on Sunday...
James Warren | Posted January 4, 2009 | Media
You can start the New Year feeling indulgent and selfish by inspecting Jan. 12 Time's "Wasting our Watts" and the Jan. 3-9 Economist's "Troubled Waters." On land and sea, we appear equally our own worst enemy.
Time's> treatise is less about conservation...
Kevin Coval | Posted January 2, 2009 | Chicago
The winter is now our reality. The long commute, the grey slush and trudge through unplowed streets. The digging out of cars with ice picks, spaces claimed with lawn chairs like flags on the moon. Forty-five minutes on a two-story L platform, as the wind whips and the heating lamp...
Bill Ayers | Posted January 2, 2009 | Politics
Of course I would have loved to have seen Linda Darling-Hammond become Secretary of Education in an Obama administration. She's smart, honest, compassionate and courageous, and perhaps most striking, she actually knows schools and classrooms, curriculum and teaching, kids and child development. These have never counted for much as qualifications...
Alden Loury | Posted January 2, 2009 | Chicago
While many college football fans have called for an end to the Bowl Championship Series in favor of a playoff system, including President-elect Barack Obama, it's the BCS that may actually be the only thing that can finally put an end to the sport's mythical national championship.
The BCS was...
The Parking Ticket Geek | Posted December 31, 2008 | Chicago
With Chicago's parking meter system changing hands at the stroke of midnight tonight, I had some thoughts I wanted to share regarding the parking meter lease plan: Overwhelmingly bad.
After spending not quite two weeks digesting the details of the city of Chicago's 75-year...
Hermene Hartman | Posted December 31, 2008 | Chicago
Governor Rod Blagojevich made one thing perfectly clear Tuesday: he is still the governor. He played a brilliant game of checkmate politics. He made a gangster move. He appointed the perfect candidate to the vacant Senate seat and leveraged his political capital to the hilt.
The world may not understand...
Erica Heller | Posted December 31, 2008 | Chicago
Can this year end soon enough?
Not for me. But for the miracle of the Obama election (and I am still pinching myself thrice daily), most of the news has seemed dumb and dumber, glum and glummer.
In the meantime, the governor of Illinois pitches forward, more arrogantly than...
Update 1:45 PM: Coulter is booked for at least two hits on...
On "Fox News Sunday," former President George H. W. Bush said he's ready for another...
On "Fox News Sunday," former President George H. W. Bush defended his son's record....
Bill Richardson and Barack Obama have always seemed a...
Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War...
A Katrina relief worker has just outed himself as an FBI mole, and...
Monday morning Sasha and Malia Obama went to their first day of school at Sidwell Friends. Mom...
If you think people laugh at your skiing skills then think again. A man was a...
Comedian Ricky Gervais has caught flack over comments he made about overweight people in an audio, and has taken...
A flurry of high-profile Twitter accounts have...
The New York Post reports that employees of disgraced billionaire...
A Perfect storm for innovation is gathering in Washington. With the government's...
WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush will be judged on what he did. He will also be remembered...
Amy Nathan | Posted January 6, 2009 | Chicago