Whet Moser

Recent comments suggest that Chicago's top cop could be amenable to softening the city's approach to policing low-level possession. It would also be another bad-behavior-based revenue stream, which are becoming an increasing part of the city's shaky finances. Read more

Racing Sausages for Recall; presidential-size turnouts; gubernatorial-level campaign money; and total unpredictability. Our neighbors to the north live in much more interesting times. Read more

Did the mayor go back on a campaign promise not to impose new taxes, or were higher property taxes always an option for making up the CPS budget shortfall? Read more

The city uses stimulus money to replace some of its high-pressure sodium street lights with white, "suburban" ceramic metal halide ones. Read more

A surge in Latino births produced a tremendous shift in the demographics of Chicago toddlers, portending substantial policy and political changes to come. Read more

The CPS just released its proposed 2012 budget, and it's facing revenue and expenditure problems. Here's what you need to know before next week's public hearings, and this month's vote. Read more

How a Chicago tombstone-maker's wooden toy set inspired one of the great computer scientists of our time, and how Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel resulted in the invention of Lincoln Logs... by his son. Read more