By The Consumer Federation Of America

A new report by the Consumer Federation of America, Angie’s List: An Evaluation of Its Usefulness for Consumers, provides a detailed assessment of this online rating service that documents many shortcomings but also explains its potential value to consumers. This report is the first in a series evaluating online services rating local service providers.
Angie’s List, founded in 1995, was originally supported mainly by annual consumer subscriptions and prioritized service to these subscribers. Today, while consumers can join for free, Angie’s List derives almost all revenue from advertising purchased by some of the local businesses that the online service lists and rates. Angie’s List recommends and gives preferential treatment to these advertisers that can easily mislead consumers into thinking that these businesses are the best ones and should be patronized. The report shows that these profiled businesses are often not those rated the most highly by consumers and by a nonprofit rating group.
CFA’s report includes the following conclusions about the usefulness of Angie’s List:

Read More

Posted on May 6, 2019

By Steve Rhodes

This video was uploaded to YouTube this week and sent me down the rabbit hole of the late LaSalle Extension University (and its Wayne School subsidiary), described by Boing Boing as the “Snail Mail Generation’s University of Phoenix.” Only worse.

Let’s take a look.

Read More

Posted on April 30, 2019

By The Field Museum

Imagine a book so massive it takes three people to open the glass display case to access it, yet so delicate the three-foot-tall pages are only turned once a week to ensure preservation.
The Field Museum’s newest exhibition, Audubon’s Birds of America, showcases this giant book, along with Audubon’s travel journal and specimens of some of the birds he brought to life
The Birds of America, published as highly prized hand-colored prints from 1827 to 1838 by painter and ornithologist John James Audubon, forever after influenced the art of wildlife illustration and is the most famous bird book in the world.

Read More

Posted on April 25, 2019

Another Beachwood Special Report

For at least a year – well, longer, really – a few downstate yahoos have urged whoever would be in charge of such a thing to cut Chicago loose and let it be its own state, the 51st, so as to stop bringing the rest of Illinois down, what with its jobs and tourism and tax dollars and, um, people of color.
Like all right-thinking people, we’re all for it. After all, downstate Illinois should be free to wallow in its own misery, which, if they could bottle it, might save their economy.
And the suburbs? Enough, parasites! Go forth with your country brethren and leave us alone!
But what would the State of Chicago look like? Well, here’s a start – apparently these are the things every state has.

Read More

Posted on April 23, 2019

“It’s your last chance to see Mummies, our limited-time exhibition featuring mummies from ancient Peru and Egypt,” the Field Museum says.
“Using non-invasive CT scanning, our scientists were able to see an Egyptian woman inside her intricate layered wrappings. At the time of her death, likely from tuberculosis, she was in her early 40s and had curly hair. Her gilded mask not only acted as an idealized portrait, but also ensured she kept her eyesight, hearing, taste, and smell in the afterlife.”

Read More

Posted on April 20, 2019

By The Chicago Tool Library

The Chicago Tool Library will launch a crowdfunding campaign Wednesday with a goal of raising $25,000 to outfit the organization’s new space in the Chicago Sustainable Manufacturing Center.
Funds will allow the Chicago Tool Library to purchase new tools, engage in outreach efforts, acquire tools and cover start-up expenses.

Read More

Posted on April 15, 2019

By J.J. Tindall

The Black Cat
Every morning when I venture
Onto the grid as winter finally wanes,
My mind is a recalcitrant predator: hyper-aware,
Vigilant, cunning, poised. By necessity
A black cat with jade-green eyes.
In the center of each, black pupils
Which reflect any color image the cat
Contemplates, first displaying the primary colors
Before they coalesce into secondaries:
Red and yellow into orange, red and blue
Into violet. You have to be vigilant.
You can only see these colors reflected

Read More

Posted on April 7, 2019

By The Art Institute Of Chicago

Through April 14, the Art Institute of Chicago presents the newest work of esteemed photographer Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953).
In this captivating exhibition, the veteran photographer shifts his focus from the portrait and the human subject to a landscape that holds the memory of fugitive pathways.
The series of 25 large-scale photographs depicts a reimagining of homes and grassy or wooded grounds along the Underground Railroad – the invisible network of routes and safe houses through which perhaps 100,000 or more enslaved African Americans found passage to freedom.
Bey made these photographs around Hudson and Cleveland, Ohio, a final way station for those escaping to Canada. This is the first museum showing of Night Coming Tenderly, Black; most works from the series will be on view.

Read More

Posted on March 31, 2019

By Jeremy Aluma/The Clown School

The Clown School, the Los Angeles-based studio devoted to teaching and promoting the art of clowning and related physical theater disciplines, is expanding its offerings nationwide.
Beginning now and running through 2019 and beyond, The Clown School is thrilled to announce the official opening of new branches in Chicago, Annapolis, Maryland and Lorton, Virginia. The classes in Chicago will be taught by Jeremy Aluma.
The School is launching an Online Certificate Training in Clown – the first of its kind in the world.

Read More

Posted on March 22, 2019

By Woodlawn Works

The Cook County Land Bank Authority selected a development partner Wednesday to demolish the historic 1924 Washington Park National Bank Building at the corner of 63rd Street and Cottage Grove.

Read More

Posted on March 20, 2019