World Series Of The Apocalypse?

By Chris Lamb/The Conversation

W.P. Kinsella is probably best known for his 1982 novel Shoeless Joe, the inspiration for the film Field of Dreams. But the following year, Kinsella wrote a lesser-known short story titled The Last Pennant Before Armageddon, in which Al Tiller, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, is haunted by a prophetic dream that the world will end if the Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. This puts Tiller in a bind: He must choose between momentary glory or the end of the world.
Those familiar with the short story may have braced themselves on Oct. 22, when the Cubs vanquished the Los Angeles Dodgers to win their first pennant since 1945. The world didn’t end. Not yet anyway.

Posted on October 28, 2016

Garbage Wars

The Politics Behind Waste Management In Chicago

“In Garbage Wars, the sociologist David Pellow describes the politics of garbage in Chicago.”

Posted on October 24, 2016

Retired U.S. General Pleads Guilty In ‘Stuxnet’ Leak Case Involving Book By New York Times Reporter

By Julia Harte/Reuters

A retired U.S. Marine Corps general who last served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pleaded guilty on Monday in a federal court to making false statements to the FBI during an investigation into leaks of classified information.
Four-star General James Cartwright was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2012 over a book written by New York Times reporter David Sanger, which exposed a malicious computer software program known as “Stuxnet” designed to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

Posted on October 18, 2016

Hot In Chicago

‘Some fires can’t be contained . . . ‘

“The first installment in Hot in Chicago, a brand-new, sizzling series from Kate Meader that follows a group of firefighting foster siblings and their blazing hot love interests!”

Posted on October 17, 2016

Dirty Waters: Confessions Of Chicago’s Last Harbor Boss

By Steve Rhodes

“In 1987, the City of Chicago hired a former radical college chaplain to clean up rampant corruption on the waterfront. R. J. Nelson thought he was used to the darker side of the law – he had been followed by federal agents and wiretapped due to his antiwar stances in the sixties – but nothing could prepare him for the wretched bog that constituted the world of a Harbor Boss,” the University of Chicago Press says.
Go on.

Posted on October 7, 2016

Upton Sinclair’s Hell

By The Accidental Shakespeare Theatre Company

The Accidental Shakespeare Theatre Company presents Hell, a Verse Drama and PhotoPlay (1924), a fiery, humorous staged reading directed by Chris Aruffo. This rarely seen verse play by Upton Sinclair will be performed Saturday at 2 p.m. at the McKaw Theater, 1439 W. Jarvis Avenue.
After exposing the evils of the meat-packing industry in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Jungle, Sinclair set his sights on militarism, jingoism, and capitalism itself.

Posted on October 4, 2016

Don’t Let U.S. Prosecute Professor Over Book About Computer Security

By The Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked a court for an order that would prevent the government from prosecuting its client, security researcher Matthew Green, for publishing a book about making computer systems more secure.
Green is writing a book about methods of security research to recognize vulnerabilities in computer systems. This important work helps keep everyone safer by finding weaknesses in computer code running devices critical to our lives – electronic devices, cars, medical record systems, credit card processing, and ATM transactions. Green’s aim is to publish research that can be used to build more secure software.
But publishing the book, tentatively entitled Practical Cryptographic Engineering, could land Green in jail under an onerous and unconstitutional provision of copyright law.

Posted on October 3, 2016