CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: How many times have you wanted to wag your finger at Tribune weatherman Tom Skilling? Credit: NIU Office of Public Affairs.)

Ordinarily I find the snark over at Chicagoist a bit too overbearing even for me (yes, me). But I have to hand it to them on their Tom Skilling Weather Experiment, which kicked off on Monday. For five weeks, Chicagoist plans to compare forecasts from the popular Chicago Tribune/WGN weatherman with the weather that actually comes to pass.

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(Photo: Chicago’s Looper photoblog zooms into its second anniversary. Credit: Looper.)

Today, Devyn Caldwell’s Looper photoblog celebrates its second anniversary. For the past two years Looper has focused intently on downtown Chicago, featuring edgy, insightful, and often unexpected images of the city’s urban core for a loyal and growing audience. Browse Looper and see for yourself why I consider Devyn to be Chicago’s best urban photographer since the seminal work of the mid-20th century’s Charles Cushman.

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Would you like ‘L’ delays and cram?
Not during rush hour, Frankie man.

I do not like them on the ‘L’.
I do not like them very well.

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Throughout the CTA’s Brown Line reconstruction project, it’s been no secret that the agency planned to reduce north side service on the Red, Brown, and Purple lines from four tracks to three during construction at the Belmont and Fullerton stations this spring. However, even for the CTA, the ineptitude of today’s announcement and lack of planned service alternatives is, frankly, stunning.

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(Photo: “Rub my head, you know you want to.” — A Christmas present from Devyn.)

Spiritual awakenings take by surprise reluctant souls and lead them on unexpected journeys. A truism so simple, no elative adjectives needed. For reluctant souls, any spiritual journey at all is, by definition, an extraordinarily, very, very unexpected one.

God knows, I was surprised.

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