Friday, May 24, 2013
Politics News Mayor Rahm's school board takes a big stand!
Posted by Ben Joravsky today at 07.37 AM
- AP Photo/M. Spencer Green
- Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale, center, listens to opponents of proposed school closures at a packed board meeting Wednesday, May 22.
As you know, the board voted yesterday to close those schools on the grounds that the system's too broke to keep them open.
And yet the school system's not so broke it can't afford to contribute about $28 million of the $55 million in property tax dollars that Mayor Rahm wants to spend on the hotel and DePaul basketball arena.
It's even worse. The hotel/b-ball arena project will wind up costing the schools money. Because by buying the land, Mayor Emanuel will make it tax exempt, and the schools will no longer be able to tax it.
So they'll have to raise the taxes on everyone else's property to compensate. Lucky us!
In short, the mayor's proposing to spend $55 million on a project that will cost the schools money and raise our property taxes.
As I may have explained once before—right here.
And will undoubtedly explain again. In the hopes, faint though they are, that someone in a position of power will gather up the courage to tell the mayor, "Uh, you know, boss, maybe it's not a good idea to spend $55 million in property taxes on a venture that will lose money for the schools."
Do This Arts Reader's Agenda Fri 5/24: Electric Daisy Carnival, Irish Fest, and Carol Horton
Posted by Drew Hunt today at 06.10 AM
- John Sisk
- Nadastrom
Dust off your glow sticks and plastic baby pacifier 'cause we've got ourselves a rave to hit up at the Electric Daisy Carnival, a three-day EDM extravaganza in Joliet (note: campsites are available for day-sleeping) that features David Guetta, Nadastrom, Tiesto, Empire of the Sun, and more.
It's an established fact that the only true Irish in Chicago are the south-side Irish. Celebrate them this weekend at Chicago Gaelic Park's Irish Fest.
At 57th Street Books, Carol Horton, Ph.D., leads an "experiential discussion" on modern yoga, drawing examples from her books 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics, and Practice and Yoga Ph.D.: Integrating the Life of the Mind and the Wisdom of the Body.
For more on these events and others, check out the Reader's daily Agenda page.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Whoa Music Tim Dog: Dead or alive?
Posted by Miles Raymer on 05.23.13 at 04:12 PM
News of Tim's death originated in a short item on the Source website by Shah Be Allah blaming it on a seizure caused by complications from diabetes. It also noted that the last time Tim had made the news was in 2012 when Dateline set up a sting operation that seemed to have caught him in the act of defrauding women he met through a dating site.
Today that Source post is gone (but still archived online), and there's an arrest warrant out for Tim Dog in Desoto County, Mississippi. It seems that the Source item was the closest thing to proof that he had actually died. No one's been able to find a death certificate for Tim Blair, the rapper's real name, and one of his closest friends, who turned down Tim's family's request that he speak at the funeral, doubts that in the end there was even a funeral at all.
Education Politics News During school-closing vote, Mayor Emanuel is heard but not seen
Posted by Mick Dumke on 05.23.13 at 03:31 PM
- Sun-Times Media
- Mayor Rahm Emanuel: see you sometime?
Journalists, meanwhile, tried to figure out if any of the shifting explanations for the plan were actually based in fact, since it was originally presented as a way to save money, then to improve school performance, then to cut the dropout rate. The answer: not exactly.
Meanwhile, Mayor Rahm Emanuel didn't attend any of the public hearings and was on a ski vacation when the closing list was released in March. Most recently, in the days leading up to the final decision, he largely avoided the public and the media.
In case you missed it, here's the schedule he kept in the week before the board's vote:
Music Post No Bills La Sacre du Printemps turns 100, the Butchershop Quartet celebrates
Posted by Peter Margasak on 05.23.13 at 02:50 PM
Music Exploring Dance Mania's old inventory in Ray Barney's basement
Posted by Leor Galil on 05.23.13 at 02:15 PM
Given Dance Mania's reputation and importance, I was pretty eager to get down to Barney's basement and literally get my hands dirty searching for the label's classic records. So I recently headed down to Lawndale with videographers Dustin Park and Peter Holderness in tow, where we explored the Dance Mania inventory with Barney and Mitchell and talked to the pair about the label's history, its new-found popularity, and selling off the old records. As Mitchell told me the back stock is picked over, but we still managed to discover some beloved Dance Mania records hiding between leftover LPs from Barney's old retail music store. Check out our video below to see some of the records we found, watch Barney and Mitchell talk about the label's history, and get a glimpse of a dance nerd's Holy Grail.
LGBT Film Talking to founder Brenda Webb about new plans for the city's LGBT film festival
Posted by Ben Sachs on 05.23.13 at 01:38 PM
I spoke with Webb yesterday about Reeling's evolution. She was enthusiastic about the future of the festival but remained realistic about the challenges it faces. "It's become really tough for independent filmmakers," she said. "A lot of the old model—launching your movie at a film festival, getting a distributor, getting a theatrical run, going to DVD—has changed. . . . In terms of LGBT films, festivals around the world have come to be seen as the main theatrical opportunity; there are fewer and fewer opportunities to get a theatrical run. That changes the nature of a festival from exposing work to supporting work.
Food & Drink More barbecue for the dudes: Sweet Baby Ray's comes to Wrigleyville
Posted by Stefanie Wright on 05.23.13 at 01:08 PM
- Stefanie Wright
- Best of both worlds: bourbon (barrel aged) beer.
We'd picked a rainy weekday night when the Cubs were on the road, and we were off to an auspicious beginning, with ample parking and a dearth of drunken dudes. Still, we wondered why Sweet Baby Ray's had chosen this of all neighborhoods to settle in. It may not be a shithole these days, and obviously there are tourists and ticket holders to cater to, but what happens in the winter? Will a chain draw the rest of us, particularly with independents Wrigley BBQ and the kosher Milt's Barbecue for the Perplexed nearby?
The motto here is "Smokehouse, Bourbon & Beer," which sounds promising enough. Upon entering, you're greeted by the bartender, a "Wall of Bourbon," and multiple ribbons and trophies attesting to the prowess of the team manning the restaurant's Southern Pride smoker. They might as well have added "Sports Bar" to that tag line—the front is dominated by bar stools and hightops, and there are nine TVs inside, one on the patio, and one in the men's room (never miss a moment!)
Do This Music Pink Avalanche celebrate the release of their first record, Wraiths, with a free listening party
Posted by Luca Cimarusti on 05.23.13 at 12:33 PM
12 O'Clock Track Music 12 O'Clock Track: Classixx's "Hanging Gardens," by way of Risky Business
Posted by Tal Rosenberg on 05.23.13 at 12:00 PM
- The cover of Classixx's Hanging Gardens
