MetaFilter posts tagged with illinois

Corporate Brand Identity Avoidance Consultant

netbros — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:18:50 -0800

Aunt Feminina Boots's Char-Broiled Book Club — Feminina Boots has been experiencing a lot of difficulty lately trying to find a book club where she can say things that aren’t just going to upset people. From MeFi's own applemeat.

Sit Down, Print Out, Cut Up & Fold On

mattdidthat — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:10:29 -0800

President Obama pencil topper. Olympic Mayor Daley. Parachuting Rod Blagojevich.(Acrobat PDF) Mayor Daley Parking Meter.(Acrobat PDF) Paper sculptures by illustrator and animation artist Joe Fournier.

Wasn't Han Solo a Correllian Chancellor?

arcolz — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:32:19 -0800

HOOPESTON is documentary in four acts by synedyne, the people who did the This Is My Milwaukee ARG (MeFi post). It's about the decline of tiny town in Illinois and the strange religion that moved in and called it home.

But what would Frank Lloyd Wright say?

spiderskull — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:50:15 -0800

"[Jax de Leon's] last project as a student was a graphic representation of every note, word, instrument and voice from Come on, Feel the Illinoise! by Sufjan Stevens." Read an interview with him here.

The Anti-Tevis?

dersins — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:50:44 -0800

Rosanna Pulido is the Republican nominee for the 5th Congressional District of Illinois (Rahm Emanuel's old seat). She's also an active poster on Free Republic. An active poster on Free Republic who's learning that what you write on the internet can come back to haunt you.

From Frisbie Pi to Pluto Platter

grouse — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:50:33 -0800

In 1897, the Indiana House of Representatives passed a bill mandating that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle (pi) was 3.2. Now, 112 years later, their neighbors in the Illinois Senate have passed a resolution redefining Pluto as a planet, at least when it passes through the Illinois night sky. Of course, Pluto may not even travel through the Illinois night sky for some time.

Almost had fight at school.

cashman — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:35:39 -0800

This is the real line-a-day diary of a young farmgirl in 1937. Mr. Mark Patterson killed himself with a shot-gun. Dad went to town. Vernon Gardin came over this evening. Dad went to town. Made a cake. Wasn't any good. Fred Johnson's pretty sick. Went back to school to-day. Fred Johnson has pneumonia in both lungs. Got two new scalers today.

This is just to hold a press conference to announce...

casarkos — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:20:14 -0800

A small selection of parodic poetry inspired by the Illinois corruption mess. Ben Smith: - and which you were probably/saving/for Quinn - If you can scheme - but never scheme in writing/If you can talk - but not from your home phone Metaquotes (quoting from a locked politics-slash community): - Whose seat this is, I think I know - Shall I compare thee to an empty seat? - "The time has come," dear Roddy said,

Blagojevich on the run

zenon — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:38:47 -0800

Blagojevich impeached by State House. With only one dissenter Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was impeached by the Illinois House of Representatives while out jogging (video). This is the first step for removing the governor from power. Next the state senate puts Blaggo on trail, and that is scheduled to happen shortly after Obama's inauguration in a couple of weeks. Capital Fax Blog is reporting that Blaggo is not going to resign, and the governer has scheduled a press conference this afternoon with an official response to the vote. Previously on Mefi Note: Title shamelessly stolen from the NBC video. Summary from the Capital Fax blog: "Removal by the Senate will require at least 40 votes, meaning that Gov. Blagojevich will have to find 20 votes to avoid removal. Impossible." Rep. Milt Patterson (D-Chicago) was the only vote against impeachment, and Elga Jefferies (D-Chicago) voted "present" (ducking taking a position on the issue). Great presentation from the Chicago Tribune on the articles of impeachment here (pdf).

The making of an American shtetl

scody — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:41:38 -0800

Menorahs glowed in almost every living room window during Hanukkah. Hasidic Jews streamed down the streets on Friday night and Saturday morning, walking to and from synagogue services. "There was total freedom," marvels Magda Brown, 81, who survived Auschwitz. But inside their homes, at night, the survivors—and their families—were roiled by their pasts. The rest of Skokie did not know the troubles that stirred behind the immaculate facades of the close-packed houses.

A previous post regarding the most infamous incident in Skokie's history.

Senate seat for sale...

jpburns — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:08:49 -0800

The governor of Illinois, the guy who gets to pick who gets Obama's senate seat, gets arrested for corruption. In part: "Blagojevich and Harris were accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that included Blagojevich conspiring to sell or trade the Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. The governor was also accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions."

A President is Known by His Lawn Mower

Kattullus — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:59:39 -0800

Is there no end to the shady associations of Barack Obama? Crack journalist Dave Barry has published photographic proof that the president-elect is a Lawn Ranger. What's a Lawn Ranger? Glad you asked. Dave Barry has written about this nefarious organization not once, but twice and their strange and eldritch rites have been profiled on WILL public television of Central Illinois, where the organization has its headquarters, in the town of Arcola, where they parade every year.

Before Abu Ghraib, there was Area 2.

scody — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:34:48 -0800

For nearly 20 years, Chicago has known about police torture of suspects. Torture at the city's notorious Area 2, under Commander Jon Burge, resulted in numerous false confessions in the 1980s, including the men who became known as the Death Row 10. The Death Row 10 case was among the reasons former Gov. George Ryan's called a moratorium on capital punishment in Illinois in 2000 and pardoned four in 2003. Burge, fired in 1993, retired to Florida on his police pension, where he seemed to escape any measure of justice. Until today. The archive of the excellent investigative reporting by the Chicago Reader's John Conroy (previously) is here. (link disclosure: I was an activist around the Death Row 10 case and others in the 1990s, and contrubuted to material that may still be found on the Campaign to End the Death Penalty site.)

Obama as Political Animal

Weebot — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:03:39 -0800

Making It, in which a young, black, upstart politician rises through the Chicago political scene by having his opposition stricken from the ballot, turning against his endorser, and redistricting himself into a fundraising monster. While we're debating the New Yorker's incendiary cover, it would be tragic to ignore what may be one of the most intriguing piece of political reporting this year. In the article, Ryan Lizza chronicles Barack Obama's rise in Chicago politics, from his campaign for the State Senate (where he is first endorsed by incumbent Alice Palmer while she tries to run for the House, who later tries to oust him from the primary once her congressional campaign sours), his time in the notoriously corrupt state capital, to his failed campaign against Bobby Rush for the Illinois' 1st Congressional district. It's a fascinating read.

Lucybelle Crater posts to Metafilter

Del Far — Wed, 28 May 2008 09:26:13 -0800

"The Photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard (May 15, 1925 - May 7, 1972) suffered a fate common to artists who are very much of but also very far ahead of their time. Everything about his life and his art ran counter to the usual and expected patterns. He was an optician, happily married, a father of three, president of the Parent-Teacher Association, and coach of a boy's baseball team." "His images had nothing to do with the gritty "street photography" of the east coast or the romantic view camera realism of the west coast. His best known images were populated with dolls and masks, with family, friends and neighbors pictured in abandoned buildings or in ordinary suburban backyards." His most well known and last photography series "The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater" (1972) was based on the short story by Flannery O'Connor, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." A Gallery of more of his stuff has been put up by George Eastman House Still Photograph Archive.

Bacterial marketing: the other Oskar Schindler

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:20:23 -0800

Upon the Nazi invasion of Poland, pediatrician Eugeniusz Łazowski and his friend Stanisław Matulewicz fabricated a fake typhus epidemic to save Polish Jews from the Nazis. Knowing that typhus-infected Jews would be summarily executed, non-Jews were injected with the harmless Proteus OX19, which would generate false positives for typhus. Anglicising his name to "Eugene Lazowski", the doctor moved to the United States after the war. He lived and worked in Chicago from 1958, and passed away in late 2006 at the vernerable age of 92, in Eugene (!), Oregon. Oddly little is written about Lazowski and Matulewicz on the web; although apparently there has been work on a documentary titled "A Private War" by a filmmaker named Ryan Bank. So feel free to add supporting links if you are aware of any.

The Lincoln Douglas monuments

nax — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 08:40:36 -0800

During the 1858 senatorial campaign, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas faced each other in a series of seven official political debates. The first debate took place in this north-central Illinois town on August 21. Lincoln-Douglas debate monuments are a cottage industry, providing work for sculptors famous (scroll down) and unsung. Some of them are harder to find than others, buried between the little league field and the local VFW hall. Others are tourist attractions aimed to bring life to Illinois historic towns.

Digitized Book of the Week

Mitheral — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:55:39 -0800

Digitized Book of the Week. An eclectic collection of works digitized from the Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They include books and serials from its collections that focus on Illinois history, literature, and natural resources; rural life and agriculture; railroad history and engineering; and works in translation. A project of MsMolly.

Welcome to the Jungle...in Illinois?

Green Eyed Monster — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:13:31 -0800

Geologists have discovered the remains of one of the world's oldest tropical rainforests , near Danville IL. The four square miles of fossils are in a coal mine 250 feet below the surface.

"Thus the role played by Kaskaskia in the great drama of history closed in tragedy."

luftmensch — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:59:14 -0800

Kaskaskia: The western Illinois town stuck in eastern Missouri. First state capital, bustling economic center and a leading town in the state. That is, until the flood of 1881 cut a new river channel, destroying most of the town and leaving the remnants on the Missouri side of the Mississippi. Whether or not the disaster was due to a murdered lover's curse, the (remaining) residents petitioned that the state line be kept along the older riverbed. The town's population, once about 7000, now consists of a meager nine. [wiki]

What's in a VFW? A pile of manure by any other name would smell ...

WCityMike — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:57:48 -0800

Veterans of Foreign Wars rejects veteran of foreign war. The election has passed, and the voters of Illinois' 6th Congressional District decided that 16-year veteran Maj. Tammy Duckworth will not represent them in the United States House of Representatives. A story worth highlighting, lost amongst the sturm und drang of pre-election coverage, is that Veterans of Foreign Wars chose to endorse Duckworth's opponent, Representative-Elect Peter Roskam, who never performed any military service, in contrast to Duckworth, who had both of her legs blown off and her right arm shattered when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her Black Hawk less than two years ago and still serves in the Army Reserve. [more inside]

"To attract today's generation, glass boxes and yellow labels may not be enough".

matteo — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 07:44:43 -0800

"Calling it a museum is really a misnomer". The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum opens today in Springfield, Ill., with a silicone Lincoln posing in the rotunda and Tim Russert introducing mock TV attack ads from the campaign of 1860. In the Union Theater, an abolitionist roars "Lincoln was no friend of the black man" as hologram cannons boom to signal the start of the Civil War. Strobe lights flash; the plush seats jerk and rumble like a ride at Universal Studios. When Atlanta burns, the air feels hot. This is history, Hollywood style: A $90-million look at Honest Abe's life and times — with special effects created by the "Jurassic Park" and "Terminator 3" team of Stan Winston Studios (link with sound).

Guilty or Innocent?

eschatfische — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:57:51 -0800

Guilty or innocent? Thanks to the work of the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions, an organization with a long history of assisting in the exoneration of the innocent, the case of Alan Beaman, convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend in 1993, may be reopened soon. [mi]

Sanctity of Marriage, indeed

gimonca — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 22:29:08 -0800

Republican Congressman Jerry Weller of Illinois just got married-- to Zury Rios Sosa, a current member of congress in Guatemala. "The U.S. Congressional Historian in the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives confirmed this would be the first ever inter-parliamentary marriage between a sitting U.S. Representative and someone currently serving in national legislative body abroad. "

What Rep. Weller's own site omits is that his new wife is the daughter of former Guatemalan dictator Efraim Rios Montt, friend of Ronald Reagan, born-again Christian, and, according to many, genocidal thug.

The unholy union was reported in the local press, but one reporter who had been following the congressman's connections turned up brutally beaten outside his apartment under mysterious circumstances.

Superdudes

malphigian — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 08:36:46 -0800

Superman lookalikes or, more accurately, Jimmy Corrigan lookalikes at the Metropolis, IL Superman Celebration.