Sometimes important news eludes us because it all sounds so technical. Take the fight over BP’s plans to allegedly pollute Lake Michigan. The news that we missed from an independent analysis is that the company’s plan for a $3.6 billion upgrade of its northwest Indiana refinery will not muck up the lake, as the plan’s critics assert and as the public has been led to believe.
Read More...Fourteen-year-old Patrick was the man of the evening.
Patrick adjusted his tie, and strode confidently through an overflowing crowd at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, and climbed the stage.
As Patrick addressed the audience during a Q & A session last week, his Irish-red hair gleamed under the spotlight, while his image was shown on two large television screens.
The occasion was a fund-raising benefit for LYDIA Home Association, a Christian-based organization named after an early convert to Christianity. LYDIA provides services such as residential treatment for children and adolescents with behavioral problems, foster care, pre-school, and child abuse prevention programs.
In prepared remarks that were adapted for the Q&A session, Patrick tells his life story with sad memories of physical abuse at a very young age.
“Our neighbors called the cops and they came to my house and took me away from my mom. ... Read More...
Catch if you can
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World
Until January 28th 2008
Map-lovers have found Chicago a veritable paradise this winter, with more than 30 institutions taking part in a citywide festival. The Field Museum presents perhaps the most sweeping exhibition, with maps of worlds both real and imaginary (J.R.R. Tolkien supplies a map of Thror), and cartographers ranging from Leonardo da Vinci to satellites. There are many treasures here. See Charles Lindbergh’s flight chart from New York to Paris. Compare a medieval Christian map of the world with a Buddhist one from the 18th century, or a map of the Holy Roman Empire’s roads with one for American drivers on holiday in the 1930s.
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