By Steve Rhodes
“What’s black and white and read all over? Not the white pages, which is why regulators have begun granting telecommunications companies the go-ahead to stop mass-printing residential phone books, a musty fixture of Americans’ kitchen counters, refrigerator tops and junk drawers,” AP reports.
“If the white pages are nearing their end, then Emily Goodmann hopes the directories would be archived for historical, genealogical or sociological purposes.
“‘The telephone directory stands as the original sort of information network that not only worked as kind of a social network in a sense, but it served as one of the first information resources,’ said Goodmann, a doctoral student at Northwestern University who is writing her dissertation on the history of phone books as information technology. ‘It’s sort of heartbreaking . . . even though these books are essentially made to be destroyed.'”
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Goodmann’s Twitter bio: “PhD candidate on the historical trail of telephone directories and information operators.”
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Goodmann’s Chicago & The Telephone Directory slide show: “The Chicago telephone directory, an early prototype, was distributed to incentivize telephone subscriptions and assuage calls to the operator. In practice, however, it was a survey tool for its users. Through the directory’s use by subscribers and residents, individuals mapped new pathways for understanding and acclimating themselves to urban life at-large. The directory-surfing mobile telephony enthusiast of today echoes the directory users years ago who extolled telephone directories as ‘intensely interesting and absorbing’ (Nelly Gordon, The Story of Chicago, 1912).”
Rahmapalooza
“Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel plans to make official this weekend what everyone already knows: He’s running for mayor of Chicago,” AP reports.
“An Emanuel campaign aide confirmed the plans to The Associated Press on Wednesday evening. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he didn’t want to pre-empt Emanuel’s announcement planned for Saturday.”
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Coming Friday: “Rahm Emanuel is within a day or two of officially announcing his candidacy for mayor, an aide said on condition of anonymity as part of an expensive media rollout planned by highly paid consultants.”
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Coming Saturday: “Encouraged by the media coverage of his unofficial campaign for mayor, Rahm Emanuel will make his run ‘official’ by creating an artificial event that in no way changes reality in anyway, an examination aided by media professionals and physicists has found.”
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Coming Sunday: “It’s Official: Rahm In For Mayor.”
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Coming Monday: “How did the Rahm announcement go? We take a look.”
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Coming Tuesday: “Now comes the hard part: officially campaigning for mayor.”
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Coming Wednesday: “Can anyone beat Rahm? Instant frontrunner appears to have it in the bag.”
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Coming Thursday: “Our view: Spoiler candidates should just drop out.”
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Coming Friday: “Our view: Why waste the money holding an election when it’s obvious Rahm is the winner?”
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Coming Saturday: “Maybe we should have asked more questions about that $16 million Rahm made as an investment banker in just 18 months without any previous experience, or about how he got elected to Congress with the help of Don Tomczak’s illegal patronage army, but it’s too late now. Besides, he simply refused to answer and we got too scared to bring it up. It doesn’t matter, the people of Chicago don’t care anyway. They always elect crooks.”
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Coming Sunday: “How Rahm won.”
The Problem With Hyperlocal
Onion or Tribune?
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I prefer hyperjournalism.
Qwappy Quigley
I’m disappointed in Mike Quigley. Nancy Pelosi is one of the few competent leaders in Washington. She may be “politically toxic” but that’s only because she’s been demonized by the Republicans, who will go on to demonize whoever replaces her. The Democrats do it too. It’s gotta stop. Does the Obama administration and its political tentacles, including the DNC, have the courage to actually change our discourse? I doubt it. That’s not who the president is – just who a lot of folks thought he was, and now he’s paying the price.
Obama Stimulus Claims Half Lies
“He stretched the facts,” an examination by ProPublica and Politifact has found.
Making TV
The Chicago Code On Location.
America’s War On Christianity
“It is now possible in America to be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for praying in the name of Jesus.”
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Example: Everybody get down or I swear to God I’ll blow your heads off!
Meister Brau On The Move
Trademark for purveyor of Daley’s Brew is up for sale.
The Czar of the Playbook
Has the keys to this week’s Bears-Vikings game.
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Outlaws and the Outfit
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Double stuf.
Posted on November 11, 2010