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May 27, 2012

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Sustainability = Security: The Next Mission for America's Vets

Dylan Ratigan | Posted May 26, 2012

Read More: Energy, Sustainability, Veterans, Video, Iraq Veterans, John Hofmeister, Memorial Day, Liz Perez, Memorial Day 2012

As our nation starts to draw down the wars overseas, over a million vets will be re-entering civilian life over the next five years -- one of the largest in our country's recent history.

This Memorial Day weekend, we are focusing on the next mission facing our war...

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"Old Country" Bonds: Chicago and the Future of the Atlantic Alliance

Mark V. Vlasic | Posted May 26, 2012

Read More: Anders Rasmussen, Georgetown University, Georgetown University Law Center, Nato Summit, Chicago, Milosevic, Nato, Nato Summit 2012, Nato Summit Chicago, Presdident-Obama, Transatlantic Relations

At NATO's 25th Summit in Chicago, both President Barak Obama and NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen commented on the Windy City's unique role in transatlantic relations. Based upon decades of immigration from Europe to Chicago, the city is a testament to the strong bonds that exist on both sides of...

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Dance That Looks Like Music Sounds: Hubbard Street's Alejandro Cerrudo

Johnny Nevin | Posted May 25, 2012

Read More: Alejandro Cerrudo, Hubbard Street Dance, Choreography, Dance, Music For Dance

When Hubbard Street Dance Chicago presents Alejandro Cerrudo's Malditos at their Summer Series next week, several thousand more people will have the chance to see why, after more than three decades of dance innovation and boundary defiance, the widely-respected Company made Cerrudo their first ever Resident...

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When Cutting Illinois' Medicaid Program, First, Do No Harm

Andrea Kovach | Posted May 25, 2012

Read More: Illinois Health Care, Illinois Medicaid, Illinois State Budget, Medicaid Cuts, Illinois Medicaid Cuts

The Illinois General Assembly is currently debating where to cut $2.7 billion dollars (roughly 18 percent of spending) from the state's health insurance program for certain low-income populations. The thinking is that these "savings" will band-aid the hemorrhaging state budget deficit and root out fraud. If the Medicaid...

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The Affordable Care Act: Protecting America's Protectors

Caitlin Padula | Posted May 25, 2012

Read More: Affordable Care Act, Memorial Day, Veterans Health, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Memorial Day 2012, Veterans Affordable Care Act, Veterans Benefits, Veterans Health Care

In 2010, over 22 million men and women who have served our country in the Armed Forces were still alive. That's a sizeable chunk of the population and those veterans have served in every conflict from World War II through the ongoing War on Terror. Veterans are a...

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Mortar's Bombs, Babes and Bingo Makes an Impact, But Needs a Clearer Target

Robert Bullen | Posted May 25, 2012

Read More: Chicago Theater, Mortar Theatre, Bombs Babes And Bingo Play, Bombs Babes And Bingo Show, Chicago Around Town, Chicago Art

A bomb scientist, working for a deeply underground division of the U.S. military, is struggling to put the pieces together from his fractured life. His latest experiment hasn't gone exactly to plan, and the collateral damage is more than he can reconcile. His wife and daughter have gone missing... or...

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Pollution Ravages Low-Income Communities; Residents Speak Out

David Vognar | Posted May 25, 2012

Read More: Power Plants, Reducing Carbon Emissions, Carbon Emissions, Coal, Environmental Protection Agency, Epa, Low-Income

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held hearings in Chicago's Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building on Thursday in which members of the public were invited to express their opinions about (but more often than not, expressed their adulation over) the proposed carbon pollution standards for new power plants. With moments...

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Penises Make Me Laugh

Chris Krapek | Posted May 25, 2012

Read More: Full-Frontal Nudity, Male Full-Frontal Nudity, Nudity, Nudity In Film, Penis, Penis Humor, Penis Jokes, Penises, Sacha Baron Cohen Nudity, The Dictator, The Dictator Movie

I have a penis.

After several careful calculations, I think I've roughly seen it a few millions times in my life. I've never considered it to be that humorous. Penises, out of context, aren't inherently funny, are they? Situational penises can be funny, I guess. Shrinkage, sexual malfunction, size...

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How Much is a Homeless Teenager Worth?

Ed Shurna | Posted May 25, 2012

Read More: Hello Youth Group, Budget Cuts, Chicago Homeless Youth, Chicago Impact, Homeless Teenagger, Homeless Youth, Homelessness, Ipod, Youth Incarceration

How much is a homeless teenager worth?

How do you talk with a legislator about the impact of budget cuts? A group of homeless youth who are part of an organization known as the Hello Youth Group made a YouTube video and then went to...

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Directors: Intouchables Not About Race

Marshall Fine | Posted May 25, 2012

If the same proportion of people in the United States saw The Avengers as the percentage of French citizens who have seen The Intouchables, the Marvel super-hero-fest would have grossed well over $1 billion domestically (instead of slightly less than half of that).

As it is, The Intouchables, opening in...

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How to Forget on Memorial Day

Tom Engelhardt | Posted May 24, 2012

Read More: Veterans, 2012-Memorial-Day Weekend, Afghanistan War, Memorial Day, Memorial Day 2012, Memorial Day Deaths, Memorial Day Travel, Obama War In Afghanistan

Whistling Past the Graveyard of Empires

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

It’s the saddest reading around: the little announcements that dribble out of the Pentagon every day or two -- those terse, relatively uninformative death notices: rank; name; age; small town, suburb, or second-level city of...

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When Reporters Were Allegedly Attacked in Chicago, the Rights of All of Us Were Violated

Richard Schiffman | Posted May 24, 2012

Read More: Afghanistan War, Chicago Police Department, First Amendment, Iraq Veterans, War In Iraq, Anti-War, Journalists, Occupy Movement, Us Troops Afghanistan

Earlier this week, over 40 U.S. servicemen dressed in army fatigues and Navy uniforms handed their medals back to the NATO brass who were gathered in Chicago for their annual Summit Conference. Or rather, they tried to hand them back, but the generals wouldn't take them. So the...

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Anti-NATO Demonstrator Injured by Police Van

Mark Cassello | Posted May 24, 2012

Read More: Jack Amico, Jack Amico Injured, Injured Nato Protestor, Nato Chicago Protesters, Nato Chicago Protests, Nato Protests, Occupy Chicago, Occupy Chicago Protestor Injured

At approximately 10:40 p.m., Jack Amico, a supporter of Occupy Wall Street who had traveled to Chicago to take part in the anti-NATO demonstrations was allegedly injured by a Chicago police van.

Amico was one of as many as 1,000 demonstrators who had been marching through the financial...

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It's Time for Illinois to Close Tamms Supermax

John Maki | Posted May 23, 2012

Read More: Illinois Budget, Illinois Budget Cuts, Illinois Budget Crisis, Tamms Correctional Center, Tamms Prison, Tamms Prison Closure, Tamms-Super-Max-Closure

Across the country, states are using the current economic crisis as an opportunity to pursue cost-effective criminal justice reform. In this spirit, Governor Pat Quinn has proposed closing eight Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) facilities, including Tamms Correctional Center (Tamms), the state's only supermax prison.

In a...

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Why Apple Is the True Legacy of Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show

Brad Spirrison | Posted May 23, 2012

Read More: Apple App Store, Johnny Carson, The Tonight Show, Angry Birds, App Store, Apple, Draw Something App, iPhone Apps, Instagram

When Johnny Carson stepped down from hosting The Tonight Show 20 years ago this week, Apple was pushing a rudimentary tablet computer called the Messagepad, and analog televisions were the primary delivery system for electronic media, news and entertainment.

Back then, most of us lived on a handful...

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The Rising and the Children of 9/11

Craig Werner | Posted May 23, 2012

Read More: 9/11, Bruce Springsteen, The Rising

Written by Brian Moran

For us 9/11 kids, there's something that sticks out about The Rising as an album from the first note of "Lonesome Day."

They say that the political events of your childhood/adolescent days define your political views for the rest of your life. And as 3rd...

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The Most Honest Commencement Speech You'll Never Hear

Lisa Bloom | Posted May 23, 2012

Read More: College Commencement, College Commencement Speech, College Graduation, College Graduation Speech, Commencement, Commencement Speech, Graduation, Graduation Speech

Graduation season is upon us, and with it all the speeches about shooting for the moon, going for the gold, nothing is impossible, yada yada. I myself have delivered three such college commencement addresses in recent years.

But as I've spent the last year crunching the numbers and talking...

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What the Heck Is Modern Dance?

Nora Younkin | Posted May 23, 2012

Whether it's to relatives at a family party or a random guy at the bar, when people ask what I do and I respond that I'm a dancer (or a month ago, a "dance major"), such a simple answer invariably begs more questions. No, I am not an "exotic dancer."...

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A Soldier's Perspective on Memorial Day

Nicole Bires | Posted May 23, 2012

Read More: Veterans, Memorial Day, Armed Forces, Army, Memorial Day 2012, Soldiers, Troops

We wear dog tags around our necks... just in case.

We weave dog tags into our boot laces... just in case.

We keep tourniquets in uniform pockets... just in case.

We have been known to tattoo our blood type, names and Social Security numbers on our bodies... just in case.

...

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The Kids Are All Right: Gay Parents Raising Children

Dr. Peggy Drexler | Posted May 23, 2012

These days, gay parents are no novelty: We see them strolling through our neighborhoods, participating in our PTA meetings, and, perhaps most notably, appearing on our TV screens: Mitchell and Cam, fathers to Lily, on the ratings smash Modern Family; Glee's Sue Sylvester, expectant mom to a baby conceived with...

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