By Steve Rhodes

A couple weeks ago my Twitter feed was suddenly inundated with ads – many of them up to a year old. In an effort to figure out what was going on, I stumbled upon the ability of Twitter users to request a list of advertisers who have included them among their tailored audiences. So I requested my list. Here is what Twitter sent me. (Kraft Singles? BabiesRUs? Calvin Klein? Boy, Twitter advertisers, you don’t know me at all!)
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Tailored audiences
These advertisers have included you in one or more tailored audiences. Tailored audiences are often built from email lists or browsing behaviors. They help advertisers reach prospective customers or people who have already expressed interest in their business.
You can opt out of tailored audiences and other interest-based advertising in your personalization and data settings. Find them at twitter.com/personalization. This will change the ads you see on Twitter, however it won’t remove you from advertisers’ audiences.
@0898jonnyt @76
@7eleven @8cyrus8
@ABC @ABCDesignated @ABCNetwork @ABCSharkTank @AETV
@ATT @ATTBusiness @Acura @AlmondBreeze @Always @Angels @AnimalKingdom @Applegate @Aspiration @AudienseCo @BBCAMERICA @BankofAmerica @BasketsFX @BernieSanders @BestBuy @BlueJays @Braves @BravoWWHL @Brewers @BringItLifetime @Bryant_Jones21 @Burberry
@CBS @CBSNews @CDKGlobal @CNN @CanonUSApro @Cardinals @CellPressNews @ChappyCPGA @Charmin @Chase @ChaseforBiz @ChickfilA @ChipotleTweets @ChoiceHotels @Cisco @CiscoRetail @CitizensBank

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Posted on March 22, 2018

By Great Big Story

“Kareem Wells grew up in a rough neighborhood in Chicago. He started selling drugs when he was 14 and dropped out of school two years later. Still, he never let his love of music go. When he got a call to perform at his first bar mitzvah, his whole life changed. Now, as Chicago’s go-to local entertainer, Wells is the reigning King of the Mitzvahs. Today, he’s so popular that his gigs are booked three years in advance.”

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Posted on March 20, 2018

By Ranjit Dighe/The Conversation

Although craft beer has experienced explosive market growth over the past 25 years, the vast majority of Americans still don’t drink it.
Only about 1 in 8 beers sold in America is a craft beer.
For the first time, the three best-selling beers in America are light beers: Bud Light, Coors Light and Miller Lite. Bud Light alone has a greater market share than all craft beers combined.

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Posted on March 19, 2018

By The Chicago History Museum

From Masc4Masc camouflage of the ’70s to DIY club kids of the ’80s to dandies through the ages, turning heads ain’t nothing new. Explore queer fashion at the Chicago’s History Museum’s Out at CHM event “Celebrating and Contextualizing Queer Fashion.”
The event takes place on Thursday, March 22, at the Chicago History Museum. The program begins at 6:30 p.m. while a reception kicks off the event at 5:30 p.m.
The program includes a panel discussion and fashion show featuring an array of head-turning designs that flip the script on gender norms and celebrate young contemporary fashion designers.

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Posted on March 16, 2018

From Coinkydink Cider To Pabst Blue State Ribbon

“Gov. Bruce Rauner today joined state Rep. Tim Butler and Springfield Mayor Jim Langfelder, both Bicentennial Commissioners, to debut the first cans of the Official Bicentennial Craft Beer at Binny’s in Springfield. ‘1818 Prairie State Farmhouse Ale’ is now available at most Binny’s, Jewel-Osco’s, HyVee’s and other select retailers statewide,” the governor’s office announced Wednesday.
“Hand of Fate Brewing Co. of Petersburg was chosen to create the special birthday brew after winning the Bicentennial craft beer contest at the Illinois State Fair in August.”
The Beachwood I Team has learned, however, that ‘1818 Prairie State Farmhouse Ale” may have been clouted in, because after all, how could all of these great entries lose?

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Posted on March 15, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

Smoking in the bathroom, hanging out with trouble-making friends, drinking beer and calling in a bomb scare. Oh, and graduating high school at 16 and going on to become a religion scholar. Meet DePaul’s Lisa Poirier.

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Posted on March 13, 2018

A Kartemquin Film

“In 1963, 250,000 students boycotted the Chicago Public Schools to protest racial segregation. ’63 Boycott connects the forgotten story of one of the largest northern civil rights demonstrations to contemporary issues around race, education and youth activism.”
The Chicago Teachers Union screened ’63 Boycott on Monday night and held an accompanying panel discussion.
Film clip:

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Posted on March 13, 2018

By The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service

Heartland Catfish Company, an Itta Bena, Miss. establishment, is recalling approximately 69,016 pounds of Siluriformes fish (catfish) products that may be adulterated with a residue of public health concern, specifically leucomalachite green, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Friday.
The various fresh and frozen, raw, intact Siluriformes (catfish) products were produced on February 16, 2018. The following products are subject to recall:

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Posted on March 10, 2018

By The Illinois Audobon Society

SPRINGFIELD, IL. – The Illinois Audubon Society has acquired 347 acres in Pope County with assistance from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.
The property, known as Round Pond, lies in the Coastal Plain Natural Division of Illinois in an ancient channel of the Ohio River.
This wetland rich area contains high quality bottomland hardwood forests and deep water swamps with old growth bald cypress and tupelo gum timber.
The tract borders an existing 206-acre Illinois nature preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy.
“Acquisition of this property will now protect all of the land associated with the Round Pond Natural Area and provides the opportunity to expand the portion of the site that is presently designated as an Illinois Nature Preserve,” said Audobon executive director Jim Herkert.
“Once again the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation has played a major role in protecting important natural areas in our state. We are honored to partner with them in protecting this site and the high quality wetlands it contains.”

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Posted on March 8, 2018

By Scott Gordon/WisContext

A state government-funded ad campaign aimed at recruiting younger workers to move to Wisconsin from Chicago touts cost of living as a critical advantage.
Indeed, the phrase “cost of living” pops up regularly in discussions about economic development at both the state and local levels, and at the personal level, in families’ discussions about career opportunities and financial futures.
But cost of living isn’t a standardized, hard-and-fast mathematical concept. And looking into how it’s defined and applied to specific places reveals less about empirical economic differences and more about the nuanced and fluid ways in which people make decisions about money, opportunity and lifestyle.
To get the obvious out of the way: No reasonable person can dispute that it’s more affordable, on the whole, to live just about anywhere in Wisconsin than the Chicago area. It’s an economic fact of life that it is more expensive in some geographic areas than others to buy or rent a home, stock up on groceries, get around by car or public transit, pay for basic utilities, obtain child care and healthcare services, and enjoy leisure activities like dining out or live music.
Just about any of cost-of-living calculation will largely rest, and reasonably so, on housing costs. However, there’s no one standard formula for how to use that information to determine cost of living.
“There’s a number of different ways to look at it,” said Matthew Kures, an economist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension’s Center for Community and Economic Development. “Cost of living is typically kind of the market basket of goods that people typically use on a daily basis, but really one of the biggest drivers of cost of living differences is housing costs. When people think of the price of a gallon of milk or the price of a gallon of gasoline, there’s certainly a regional difference between those costs, but the biggest driver is going to be housing costs.”
Cost-of-living calculations play an important role in the discussion Wisconsin is having in its attempts to retain and attract more young workers – which in recent years has been a struggle.

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Posted on March 7, 2018