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Tag: Long Reads
The Deadly Difference
By Shane Tritsch
Black women in Chicago are far likelier to die of breast cancer than white women, resulting in a disparity that's nearly double what it is nationally. This pattern of racial inequality shows up locally with other diseases—evidence that Chicago is failing at narrowing its racial divide in health. Why? And what must be done? Read more
Campus Revolutionary
By Dirk Johnson
Last year, after taking over as the head of Northwestern University's highly regarded Medill School of Journalism, John Lavine vowed to "blow up" the curriculum, changing its emphasis to new media and marketing. Students and alumns have responded with anger and charges of betrayal. Read more
Out There
By Robert Sharoff
When the brilliant and erratic Jeff McCourt founded the Windy City Times in 1985, he began a 15-year run that changed the way gays were regarded. But his volcanic personality caused countless rifts, and he died this year at 51, largely alone. Read more
Cast Away
By David Bernstein
Every time ABC runs an episode of its hit TV series Lost, Evanston's Jeffrey Lieber gets an onscreen credit and his bank account gets a nice pop. But the twisting tale of his Hollywood triumph has left Lieber feeling a bit ... well, lost. Read more
Lupe Fiasco, Word Star
By Bryan Smith
Sit back and listen in on a Range Rover ride to the West Side with breakout rapper and Renaissance nerd Lupe Fiasco. You’ll get an earful on history, sociology, anthropology, and the artist’s muses, from Tchaikovsky to Noam Chomsky to Ice Cube Read more
The Lost World of Kup
By Carol Felsenthal
When Irv Kupcinet, the legendary gossip columnist of the Chicago Sun-Times, died last year, it marked the end of a remarkable era of glamour and intrigue. Read more
Hiding Between the Lines
By John Cook
Over the course of 20 raucous years, J. J. Jameson became a fixture on the city's lively poetry circuit—a loud, drunken declaimer out of central casting. So his many friends were more than a little shocked when Massachusetts police came to town this spring and arrested him. He had been active in his church, loyal to a fault, unusually talented—and his writing revealed such intimate details of his life that people on the scene thought they knew him. But they didn't know he had been doing time for murder, and had escaped. They didn't even know his real name. Read more
About a Boy
By Kevin McKeough
Chicago's North Shore hardly seems the crucible for edgy punk-pop. But with a new CD that's already gone gold, and jam-packed concert crowds, Fall Out Boy has burst out of the suburbs (even though most of the band members still live with their parents). Read more
The Missionary Returns
By Geoffrey Johnson
In the eight years that he has headed the Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George has navigated a range of crises and addressed a groundswell of dissent. Some in his flock remain uncertain about where he will lead them. But now this scholarly and personable man says the way has cleared for his main agenda: bringing people into his church. Read more
House of Cards
By Bryan Smith
Nine bright kids, two harried parents, and a table a few sizes too small made for a raucous dinnertime at the Murray home in Wilmette. Turns out, growing up amid the wisecracks provided the best training a comedian could hope for. Read more