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February 2011

	03/24/11 Their City Was Gone: Detroit, Disaster Porn, and the Decline of the Middle Class Pictures of Detroit's beleaguered neighborhoods and crumbling buildings are guaranteed web-traffic boosters, and now there's a lavish coffee-table book devoted to them. How are pictures of decrepit infrastructure competing with celebrity gossip? Posted at 5:46 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/28/11 Changing Times in Madiganistan? For years Michael Madigan has been the quiet center of state politics, and he's been a player in local politics as well. But as he gets older, questions of succession are inevitable. Posted at 5:25 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/28/11 You Get the Hip Chicago You Pay For Another New York publication has decided that Chicago is exciting, excited, glittery, and elan-tastic, but they can't really put their finger on why. Luckily, we've got the numbers behind the hipness. Posted at 3:22 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	02/25/11 With Next, Grant Achatz Returns to Escoffier, Again The Alinea chef's moment of gastronomic time-travel is due to present its first menu, a tribute to the legendary French chef drawn from his "Le Guide Culinaire," on April 1. But it's not the first time Achatz has served up Escoffier's recipes. Posted at 5:50 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/25/11 How Boeing Won the KC-X Tanker Contract, Maybe For Good This Time Yesterday's big business news was that Chicago-based Boeing won a $35b contract to replace the Air Force's extremely old tanker planes over the European conglomerate EADS. It's the third time the contract has been awarded, and the latest development in one of Washington's longest, most expensive dramas. Posted at 12:56 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/24/11 Chicago Panics Over Record Snow! (Circa 1896) The city is set to break a monthly snowfall record that's stood since the 19th century. Just be grateful that it's not a dark mush of cigar ashes, soot, and "horseshoe particle" like the one that fell back then. Posted at 3:39 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/24/11 Political Roundup: In the Wake of the Chicago Mayoral Election Rahm Emanuel names his transition team; more theories on why voter turnout was so low; the ongoing problems of Meritorious Good Time; sobering stats on minority poverty and unemployment; and more. Posted at 1:27 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/23/11 Why Rahm Emanuel Won Meet the new boss, the logical next step after the old boss: Rahm Emanuel will replace Mayor Daley as the mayor of Chicago after a convincing win that emerged from money, power, and history. Posted at 4:42 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (3)
	02/23/11 How to Deal With Chicago Sidewalk Rage: Serenity Now! Do spitters and slow walkers raise your hackles? If so, you might be a sidewalk rager. But when you hit the streets and they hit back, it's healthier to turn the other cheek. Posted at 10:58 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/22/11 Chicago Election Night 2011: The live feed In the waning hours of a historic Chicago election, here's a sampling of the conversation happening online with Chicago politicians, reporters, commentators and newsmakers. Posted at 5:46 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/22/11 Chicago Mayoral Election Evening Roundup: 1.5 Hours of Democracy Left and Turnout Is Low As election day comes to a close, the question isn't just whether Rahm Emanuel will hit 50%... it's also whether the city will hit 50% turnout. Plus: the importance of census figures and street planters. Posted at 5:25 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/22/11 On Election Day, Wisconsin and Indiana Union Battles Steal Chicago's Thunder Chicago, long a determining factor in national Democratic politics, elects its new mayor today, or at least decides to narrow down its choices. But thanks to our neighbors, we might be more famous as a Democratic sanctuary state. Posted at 1:59 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/22/11 Chicago Mayoral Election News and Notes: A Democracy, If You Can Keep It, Or Are At Least Up For Going to the Polls Happy Municipal Election Day! Some predictions, observations, and links to keep you busy as you await your civic political fate. The only place you'll find an explanation of why Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins will finish ahead of Rahm Emanuel. Posted at 11:51 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	02/22/11 From Krasnodar with Love As the editor of Chicago magazine, I am pleased to announce that we have just published our first Russian edition! Just kidding. But a Chicagoan might be entitled to wonder, if he or she happened to be visiting the south Russian town of Krasnodar and picked up the local city magazine. Witness above the basis for confusion: Our “40 Reasons to Love Chicago” cover from December 2010 and Krasnodar magazine’s “30 Reasons to Love Krasnodar” dated February 2011. The striking similarity was first brought to my attention by Olga Smolkina, a... Posted at 11:06 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (9)
	02/21/11 Dave Duerson, Concussions, and the NFL Players' Union Battle The latest development in the tragic death of the Bears' great is that Duerson's brain will go to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy so that it can be studied for trauma. It's another chapter in a story that's been haunting the NFL for a decade, and an issue that looms over a pending lockout. Posted at 4:12 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/21/11 How Did Rahm Make His Millions in Investment Banking? Carol Moseley Braun says that Rahm Emanuel's rainmaking was the result of "rape and robbery"... before restating it as "pillaging and plundering." Which, if either, was it? Posted at 4:03 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/20/11 The Chicago Mayoral Vote: Predictions for Tuesday Will there be a runoff? Can Carol Moseley Braun arrest her slide in support? Will voters move from Del Valle to Chico in order to stop Rahm Emanuel's seemingly inevitable victory? The Magic 8-Ball says.... Posted at 5:30 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/18/11 Joseph Berrios' Friends and Family Hiring Exposed Again In case you missed it, last night WGN News at Nine aired another excellent investigative story about Cook County assessor Joe Berrios. It’s worth watching. The segment—reported by co-anchor Mark Suppelsa and Marsha Bartel—reveals how Berrios continues to put his family and close political friends on the assessor’s payroll, even while laying off 53 employees. In last night’s story, WGN reported that Berrios hired his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Vicki LaCalamita, to be his... Posted at 3:06 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/18/11 Chicago Tops the Nation in Mortgage Fraud Risk Not only does the city outrank all other metro areas in insurance fraud risk, one zip code in Englewood leads all others across the country. And it's the same area that was the focus of a Tribune investigation into mortgage fraud... in 2005. Posted at 1:03 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/18/11 Which Side (of the Wisconsin/Illinois Border) Are You On? Wisconsin legislators have gone AWOL in the Land of Lincoln as protesters swarm Madison to challenge Gov. Scott Walker. Who's right? And how will it impact Illinois? Posted at 11:02 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/17/11 Scott Turow Explains Rahm Emanuel to New Yorkers The local lawyer and world-famous crime novelist, who's also pretty well connected to city and state Democrats, gets called on by the New York Times to tell their readers what's going on with the Chicago mayoral race. Posted at 12:13 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/17/11 Good News For Illinois Taxpayers, Or Maybe Just Illinois Tax Nerds Rahm Emanuel and Pat Quinn may both be pretty vague on their tax-reform ideas, but at least it means important questions about Illinois and Chicago taxes are making the news. Posted at 11:08 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/16/11 Did Borders Go Bankrupt Because People Aren't Reading? The bookstore chain is closing down most of its Chicago stores and about half its stores in the Chicagoland area. But buying and business habits are as or more important than reading habits in the decline of the company. Posted at 7:15 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/16/11 Chicago Census Roundup: Why Is Chicago Shrinking? The census numbers are in, and Chicago is smaller than it used to be, with a striking decline in its black population, which is leaving for the suburbs and the South. What's driving black and white flight from the city? Posted at 4:30 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (5)
02/16/11 Keith Moreland Comes Off the Bench to Replace Ron Santo WGN turns to reserve announcer and former Cubs stalwart Keith Moreland to fill the big, gruff shoes of Ron Santo. Posted at 10:22 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/15/11 Pat Quinn's Illinois Budget Address is Tomorrow, But the Fuss Has Begun Pat Quinn hasn't yet delivered his state budget address, but state GOP legislators are already crying foul. Meanwhile, two potential solutions, a reduction in pension benefits for existing employees and a progressive state income tax, are likely to remain unconstitutional. Posted at 8:14 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/15/11 Chicago design team Creatures of the Wind 's Fashion Week presentation Chicago's senior editor Nora O'Donnell is covering Fashion Week 2011 from New York. Here are her tweets from yesterday's Creatures of the Wind show with some great links to the designers and local fashion elite... Posted at 2:57 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/15/11 New Chicago Mayoral Poll: Women Love Rahm Emanuel? Whenever a new poll in this year's mayoral primary comes out, attention is drawn to likely voting by race. But what about gender? A new poll shows Rahm Emanuel may have a big advantage with women. Posted at 2:30 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (4)
02/15/11 The Mayoral Debate: Could Rahm Emanuel Take On Ed Burke? Ed Burke took a licking from Rahm Emanuel in last night's WTTW mayoral debate. But the city's longest-serving alderman and finance committee chair has taken them from Jane Byrne, Harold Washington, and Mayor Daley, and keeps ticking. Posted at 10:48 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/14/11 Want a Real Battle Between Politicians and Unions? Welcome to Wisconsin As politicians and unions quietly shadowbox in Chicago and Illinois, a real throwdown is shaping up across the border. The fallout could shape politics in our state and across the country. Posted at 5:24 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/14/11 Attack of the Coffee Pod People The coffee packet and pod market is growing, with Starbucks looking to get its beans into a single-serve product as part of its breakup with Kraft. But you can do better coffee for less money by avoiding the pods. Posted at 4:12 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/14/11 Concert Tickets: A Last Minute Valentine's Day Gift That's Actually Good Make your Valentine's gift a date to be done later with this list of upcoming shows for any taste, including Mavis Staples, Randy Newman, the Mountain Goats, Yelle, and more. Posted at 1:39 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/11/11 Weekend Long Reads: Mike Ditka's Hometown, John Paul Stevens's Chicago Family History, and more It's such a hustle keeping up with the breaking news that I find myself having reserve longer, in-depth articles for the weekend. I suspect I'm not alone. Posted at 6:26 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/11/11 Meet the new Taste of Chicago: Same as the Old Taste In an effort to bring the festival back to profitability, the Taste of Chicago will be run by the Park District. Big musical acts will be eliminated, which brings the event back to its roots. Posted at 1:27 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/11/11 New Chicago Mayoral Race Poll: Can Gery Chico Force a Runoff Against Rahm Emanuel? A new Tribune poll has Rahm Emanuel's numbers up since late January, with Carol Moseley Braun's numbers tanking. With recent polls suggesting that we could be on the cusp of a runoff between Emanuel and Gery Chico, how would the race change? Posted at 11:13 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/10/11 The Chicago Pension Paradox A new report from the Civic Federation finds that the gap between city employees paying into their pension funds and former employees receiving pension funds has sharply decreased over the past decade. In the wake of changes to pensions for future employees, legislators are looking into options for current employees. Posted at 4:44 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/10/11 Slower, Elvis . . . Kiss . . . Kiss! How Chicago's Tura Satana, the outrageously buxom movie star who won pop-cult enshrinement as the badass girl-gang leader Varla in Russ Meyer's 1965 movie "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!," put the "zing" in the King of Rock'n' Roll. Posted at 11:39 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (4)
02/10/11 Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Progressives, and the Unions A new poll indicates that Rahm Emanuel has widened his lead in the mayoral race. There are many ways in which the former White House chief of staff looks like a successor to Mayor Daley, and now it's starting to seem like the votes may be there as well. Posted at 9:41 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
02/09/11 Taste of Chicago: Forever Free, Clear, and Musical? Taste of Chicago, in recent years, has been free to attend and has featured a deep lineup of prominent pop musicians. But that hasn't always been the case. Here's a brief history of the Taste, including its relationship to the big ChicagoFest musical extravaganza. Posted at 2:09 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (3)
02/08/11 Political News Roundup: How to Make Chicago the Less Windy City How a federal government program helped fund the renovation of Chicago's lavish Blackstone Hotel; Mayor Daley proposes a fix to the city's popular identity; Cinkus violations are this month's residency requirement; and more Posted at 3:18 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/08/11 Motorola's Not-"1984" ad: We've Always Been at War with Copyright Law Big Brother was watching Motorola's Xoom tablet ad during the Super Bowl to make sure it didn't borrow too much from George Orwell's 1949 classic. But Big Brother owes his existence to other people's prose... Posted at 11:47 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/07/11 If You Didn't Call Dibs, Remember Where You Dug I don't like Dibs. Saving your parking spot with folding chair or a cone or a box of diapers may be part and parcel of winter here, but the whole practice strikes me as a very un-Chicago thing to do. But this year I spent an hour and a half with a shovel giving my car the requisite breathing room and I drove away, ready to accede the space to whoever needed it. I returned home that night to find “my” spot taken... by a chair... Posted at 2:59 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (25)
	02/07/11 The Groupon Super Bowl Ads: Anatomy of a PR Disaster Groupon's self- and audience-satirizing ads have upset a lot of people, even if their intent was charitable. What went wrong: the medium or the message? Posted at 1:45 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (5)
02/07/11 Snow-shovel Phobia (and Safety) after Snowmageddon Snow shoveling is one of those guy-pride things, but it inevitably leads to snow shovel-phobia, especially if heart problems run in your family: the fear that clearing your car or walk will cause you to suffer one of the heart attacks that inevitably follow a big blizzard. Posted at 12:34 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)
	02/04/11 Super Bowl Dilemma: Taking Sides on Packers vs. Steelers vs. Bears Whom should a Chicagoan root for in the Super Bowl? It's not as simple as you think. Posted at 2:40 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/04/11 Gradients We Can Believe In During the 2008 campaign season, a skinny young presidential candidate adopted a sophisticated campaign graphics-design scheme that impressed the design world—and catapulted him to victory. And now, Chicago mayoral campaigns are looking a lot like Barack's... Posted at 9:27 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (2)
	02/03/11 That Other "Chicago Magazine" We're not the first publication to claim the title. A look at "Chicago Magazine," circa 1857, which portrayed "the West AS IT IS." Posted at 2:23 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/02/11 Snowpocalypse Then: How the Blizzard of 1979 Cost the Election for Michael Bilandic A perfect storm of weather, clout, and PR doomed the incumbent mayor in his primary battle against Jane Byrne. Posted at 4:08 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
02/02/11 Lyric Opera Announces 2011-2012 Season Chicago's senior editor Nora O'Donnell attended the Lyric Opera's announcement yesterday. Here, we bring together her tweets from the event with some great links to more information. Posted at 11:49 AM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (0)
	02/01/11 How CBBS and Robot Wisdom Made the Web as We Know It An appreciation of Chicago internet pioneers Ward Christensen, Randy Suess, and Jorn Barger Posted at 2:56 PM in The 312 | Permalink | Comments (1)

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