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A friend of mine tried to vote this morning. She had her registration card ready, and when she showed it to the officials, and they looked her up, they said,
“Well, you are registered, but you’re registered as someone who has to vote on our computers, you can’t vote by paper ballot. And our computer voting [...]

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What’s better than back-chatting idiotic television commentators on election night?
Grilling political commentators in person
See my Flavorpill listing on the GOAt Election Watch night at Schubas

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THE ECONOMIC CRISIS & YOU
Panel Discussion Tues Oct 28 6:30  pm
SAIC Columbus Bldg Auditorium
sponsored by the Student Activists and F Newsmagazine
Panelists Include:
Duke Reiter (SAIC President)
Sarah Peters (Prof. of Liberal Arts)
Robyn Coffey (BFA Student & Editor of F Newsmagazine)
Lia Rousset and Amber Ginsburg (MFA Students & collaborators in the
siteWARE project “Urbs in Horto”)
Nina Pagano, BFA Student
Join [...]

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Black Walnut Gallery presents Slated for Demolition, a one night only event investigating Chicago’s forgotten structures and institutions and people - November 1, 2008, 7 to 11 p.m.
The lower level of 212 N. Aberdeen St exhibits a collection of black and white photos of Chicago’s homeless community (potentially problematic in its objectification, perhaps?) and the [...]

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Last night Tom Wolfe spoke at the Winter Garden in the Chicago Public Library, in conversation with journalist Carol Marin. The interview was recorded for television, and for the CPL’s audio-visual archives. The event was associated with the fact that Wolfe’s The Right Stuff has been selected as the Fall book for the “one [...]

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NEW YORKER SPOILER ALERT
Last night David Sedaris spoke at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, to a packed audience. He read recent stories, diary entries, unpublished work, and a little George Saunders. It goes without saying that the event was bittersweet and frankly, hilarious… and it would be a disservice to Sedaris to recount his wonderful [...]

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Just watching the McCain-Obama Town Hall debate at this moment…
and it occurs to me… if McCain is so gung-ho about nuclear power (and he is, he’s so madly enthusiastic about it - build those plants, build heaps of ‘em, they’re safe!)  … doesn’t that present a bit of a national security issue, because McCain is [...]

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Nice little drinking game for tonight, found by K.S.You can download these cards here

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There have been little paper flyers stuck up around Logan Square lately - a method of neighborhood activism that is quite interesting in it’s low-tech nature and subtlety (and probable lack of impact). I’m interested in these little covert neighborhood actions. This one is sponsored by Neighbors for Responsible Development, a group that is behind [...]

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This is a bit cheeky, but I’m going to give it a go to see what happens.
When I was in a park yesterday, having lunch in the Loop, I overheard a conversation between a group of young women (who may or may not have been SAIC students), and one girl was complaining quite audibly about [...]

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Monotonix provides a plentitude of fruit for every man and his digital camera

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At a recent party, I set up a whiteboard and pen, and wrote the words PALIN IS: at the top. The results were interesting, albeit not particularly intelligent.

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I borrowed this from New Matilda, it is by Fiona Katauskas.

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Here is a website that has been set up to help coordinate relief efforts for Gulf Coast residents affected by Hurricane Gustav.
Also, I just received this update from the non-profit group Common Ground about current conditions:
9/1 - 2:00 pm CST
Despite water sloshing over the west side of the Industrial Canal wall, the Corps of [...]

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I found out about CHIRP: Chicago Independent Radio Project at the recent Wicker Park Festival, ostensibly because I went up to their table to grab a freebie bottle opener. But any independent radio action is worth knowing about, so I’m finding out a little more:
Chirp is planning to launch an online radio station this fall, [...]

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Oh how the mighty have fallen.
After climbing up on my moral-highground-environmentalist-dead-keen-recycler-pedestal to write about recycling in Chicago (see one of my recycling articles here) and about the changes to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s recycling contractor (see that article here) … I now find myself committing a cardinal sin of anti-recycling badness.
You [...]

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Spoiler alert!
Oh not really, don’t worry.
This is NOT a review.
I was just troubled by the fact that the conclusion of The Dark Knight ends with the supposedly satisfactory scenario that lying to the public is the best way of setting things straight so that good can prevail and evil doesn’t win.
I suspect that a number [...]

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Today the Chicago Tribune ran a story about how the Illinois General Assembly is going to consider a bill (HB 4520) that would mean that Illinois residents can be given a $25 fine for using a cell phone (texting or calling) while crossing a street. According to Rep Ken Dunkin, “it’s becoming more and more [...]

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I spotted a less obtuse but equally damning instance of what I will call Birth Control Misplacement.

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Pope Benedict is hanging out with the spotty adolescent youfff of the Southern Hemisphere of late, perhaps in a bid to scrounge for flagging numbers of card-carrying Catholics.
World Youth Day, which is currently taking place in Sydney, Australia, has boiled some Australian politicians into a froth of paranoia about terrorism, biological weapons and … annoying [...]

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…But happening now, in Australia. The debate essentially circles around the idea of whether it’s ok to use images of naked children/teens in artwork, and whether or not we should accept the idea that the “sexual content” of these images comes from the beholder, not the images themselves. I think it’s a bunch of paranoid [...]

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SAIC student Erin O’Brien is enacting her Peace Salon performance and activist event on July 4, 5, 18 and 19, at the MCA, Chicago.

The main idea of her open-air buzz cut hair salon is that anyone who is willing to make a “commitment to peace” can come down and get their head shaved as a [...]

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