A Chicago Blog

Here’s a good topic from Cory at BoingBoing. Just as technology frees up labor to be applied to other productive pursuits, thereby creating wealth in a free economy; so also does it free up cognitive ability to be used up in other cultural projects. Clay Shirky calls this cognitive surplus. Here’s one good passage:

And what [...]

I’m in Denver on work. We’re doing blogger training here. We call it Samsphere. I’m currently moderating a panel. Hey, look! it’s being live blogged! This creates all sorts of metaphysical quandries.

I don’t know why I watch. I don’t. But every morning as my body slowly adapts to its first dosage of caffeine, I watch Morning Joe. Like I said, I don’t know why. I think I like Willie Geist, and not just because he has a bad ass name.
They have Chris Matthews on just about [...]

I don’t usually defend Steve Rhodes, mainly because he’s usually transparently liberal. But watching Fox Chicago Sunday this morning I felt the pains of fraternity in my heart. Jack Conaty went after Rhodes on the development of the blogosphere and in so doing showed just how little he actually understands about how it works. Conaty’s [...]

My gut reaction? Bleh …
I understand that it is getting harder and harder to make money in the media business and that the consequence of this fact is major changes in the newspaper business. Last week the Sun-Times laid off dozens of staff in an effort to avoid going belly-up. And they still might. These [...]

Julie Keller has a terrific column in today’s Tribune. I don’t often gush about anyone over at the Trib, but this is perhaps the most intelligent article I’ve read since I moved to Chicago nine years ago. Keller explores both the vacancy and the potency of the concept of “change.” She closes on the eternal [...]

There’s a good thread over at CapitolFax about whether or not the Sun-Times is going under. I think the answer is a definite … maybe. But I have a plan that could divert their disaster: give the paper away for free. The Tribune’s RedEye is cleaning up the free paper market and it’s a joke [...]

Harold Henderson is no longer writing for the Chicago Reader. I am not sure what happened, but I’m sure it has something to do with the recent management change. At any rate, you can still read Harold at http://harolddaily.blogspot.com/. Good luck H.

Dan mentioned this interview in the comments yesterday and I was able to find it on Google Video. It is perhaps an even more fitting tribute to Tom Snyder than the Howard Stern interview I linked yesterday.

If you didn’t catch the Tribune’s “Perspectives” section on Sunday. There was a great article on Reason and our emotions by Jack Fuller. Fuller takes on Al Gore’s hope that the internet will usher in a new age of reasoned discourse. Along the way, he makes note of the tension between Gore’s argument against fear [...]