The Sundance Interviews: Kurt Russell (VIDEO)

The Day for Night series traveled to Sundance to talk to some filmmakers with films playing at the festival this year.



Before Kurt Russell was a grown-up movie star, he was a ballplayer. The Battered Bastards of Baseball tells the story of an independent minor league team started by his father, actor Bing Russell, and the eccentric characters whom it comprised. The team was the Portland Mavericks, for which Kurt played and was vice president. The team of outcasts shattered attendance records, produced the most successful batboy in baseball (filmmaker Todd Field), hired the first female general manager in baseball, and inspired bubblegum Big League Chew. Bing's grandchildren, Chapman and Maclain Way, made the doc, and here they share stories about the team with their uncle Kurt:








In Happiness, documentary filmmaker Thomas Balmès (Babies) follows a young boy in a remote village in Bhutan, which is on the verge of getting electricity and television for the first time. In imagery both compelling and disturbing, he charts the anticipation and reaction once it arrives. Here Balmès talks about making the film and what he discovered:








Follow Rob Feld and the Day for Night series on Twitter and Facebook.



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Richard Vanecko, Nephew Of Former Mayor Richard Daley, Pleads Guilty In Death Of David Koschman

CHICAGO - After more than nine years, Richard Vanecko, the nephew of Chicago's longest-serving mayor Richard Daley, pleaded guilty Friday to involuntary manslaughter in the death of Fred Koschman.



In exchange for pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, Vanecko will serve 60 days in jail and 30 months on probation, the Sun-Times reports. In addition, Vanecko will pay a $20,000 restitution and apologize to Koschman's mother. Vanecko will serve time in McHenry County Jail rather than Cook County for security reasons.



Mothers of both Vanecko and Koschman unexpectedly appeared in court Friday.



"I was never out for revenge," Nanci Koschman said in court Friday according to the Tribune. "I just wanted an apology."



Vanecko's attorney said his client was "a good person who would've gotten along well with Koschman under different circumstances," according to the Tribune.



The 2004 incident went down outside a Rush Street bar when Koschman and friends were arguing with a group Vanecko was with. During the altercation, Vanecko threw a punch that landed Koschman in the street where he hit is his head; Koschman died 11 days later.



Special Prosecutor Dan Webb told ABC probation is the typical punishment in so-called "one-punch cases," but also stressed the need for jail time in this instance.



"Mrs. Koschman did not ask for jail time. She told me, she said, 'I don't need another mother without her son.' But I felt that because of what happened here that some jail time was important," Webb said.



The case was also hailed as a victory for the Chicago Sun-Times' investigative reporting which had a direct impact on the decision to re-open the case after an initial probe fizzled out without any charges against Vanecko. An investigative series by the Sun-Times raised questions over how the case was handled --and if evidence was tampered with or intentionally concealed -- due to Vanecko's family ties.



Following the Friday verdict media critic Robert Feder lauded the paper, writing, "In the finest tradition of Chicago journalism, the Sun-Times exposed the clout and coverups that conspired to deny justice to a grieving mother."



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Phil Jackson On The Downside Of Winning (VIDEO)

Winning a championship and earning the title of "the best" is at the forefront of athletes' minds often from the start of their seasons. Those who succeed are met with a frenzy of celebration, adoration and attention -- all of which legendary coach Phil Jackson has witnessed firsthand. Jackson has led his NBA teams to championship wins 11 times, but says that there is a very real downside to winning.



After his team, the Chicago Bulls, won their first championship in 1991, the "Zen master" initially thought it would get easier the second time around. During an interview with Oprah for "Super Soul Sunday," Jackson admitted that this isn't the case. In his book, Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success, Jackson explains, "As soon as the cheering stops, the dance of the wounded egos begins."



"Success is as hard to accept as failure, sometimes," Jackson tells Oprah. "Everybody wants a piece of it."



Jackson says he felt responsible for helping to instill character and keep his players centered, whether they were experiencing an extreme low, like a hard-fought loss, or an extreme high, like a championship win. "As a coach, you can always bring them right back to the middle road," he says.



Staying centered is important because success, Jackson says, is never a guarantee, no matter how many times you win.



"You're only a success for the moment you do a successful act," he says. "So, these acts have to be repeated all the time. Your exuberance about one successful act or one successful game or one successful season is only a success at that time... You've got to do the same thing again and again and again."



"Super Soul Sunday" airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET on OWN.



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Balancing a Vision: Hubbard Street's Alejandro Cerrudo and One Thousand Pieces

Not long ago, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago presented the return of Alejandro Cerrudo's full evening work One Thousand Pieces, premiered in 2012 for the company's 35th anniversary. When the work was originally performed, the response to it from Hubbard Street's audiences was even more enthusiastic than expected, and expectations were unquestionably high. Alejandro Cerrudo had become Hubbard Street's first-ever resident choreographer three years earlier, and his 10 previous works for the company had steadily attracted attention and accumulated admiration, building expectations of similar creativity like the crescendo of a symphony. One Thousand Pieces was a very different undertaking, though. Exponentially more complex, it required the synthesis of so many creative and practical possibilities that it was hard to be sure if even Cerrudo could accomplish it. How he was able to do so, and do so successfully, turns out to be a study in the art of balance as much as the art of dance, balancing personal vision with practical reality, leadership with cooperation.





Hubbard Street dancers Jesse Bechard, left, and Meredith Dincolo in One Thousand Pieces by resident choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo (photo by Todd Rosenberg)




It was a substantial undertaking by any measurement, probably least of all because of the scale of the work; more daunting perhaps was the fact that Hubbard Street's stated intentions for the event were so ambitious in their scope. When the project was announced, the company described the idea as "inspired by Marc Chagall's famed American Windows," the six-panel stained glass work that Chagall had created 35 years earlier, the same year Hubbard Street Dance was founded. That left Cerrudo with the challenge of creating an important and large-scale work, and one that was to be inspired by another important and large-scale work by a major artist in a completely different medium. If it was a measure of Hubbard Street's confidence in him that they would ask him to undertake such a widely visible challenge, an even more unusual metric of that confidence is the degree to which it was constantly reconfirmed by all of the individuals involved in the complexities of Cerrudo's vision. "I've never been so supported," Cerrudo says, describing his interactions with the many other people involved in the making of One Thousand Pieces. "If I had an issue, I could go to someone, and that person would do anything to make it work."



He began where he almost always begins, with the music. "For a work inspired by the Chagall Windows, I thought that Philip Glass' music was a perfect fit," he says. "Because of the quality of his music, and of the glass and the colors, and because of the magic of the Windows and the magic of his music, as soon as I thought of the Windows I thought of Phillip Glass." Cerrudo's attention to the music he uses is always careful, and always very precise, because he simultaneously emphasizes the quality of movement that an individual section can inspire and the trajectory he will build from all of the sections he chooses. Usually, that makes choosing music one of the most difficult parts of the process for him. "Surprisingly, for a full-length evening, I knew what the music was very, very early," he says, although exactly how to arrange what he had into an effective progression came a little more slowly. One Thousand Pieces is set to 14 different Glass compositions, but Cerrudo puts them together so seamlessly that it's as if it were a single score composed for the work. "That was my goal," he says, "that, but also that the different parts of the music would take you to different places."





Hubbard Street dancer Jacqueline Burnett in One Thousand Pieces (photo by Todd Rosenberg)




One of the reasons that Cerrudo can take his audiences to so many different places is his willingness to dream. "I always try to aim for anything I can imagine, anything that I think could work," he explains. "Even if sometimes I think about it and I think, 'That's going to be hard to do,' I still want to aim for it. I don't want to limit myself." At the same time, his success has also been the result of his ability to balance his creative vision without necessarily restricting it. Not surprisingly, it's a very dynamic kind of equilibrium, always in flux, where both the practical realities of staging dance and the creative input of those he works with continuously refine what he strives for. "Your ideas morph into different ideas; they transform into things that you didn't even think of at first," Cerrudo says, "and many factors are involved in that transformation, starting with reality. Things in reality are not the same as what you have in your head."





Hubbard Street dancers Garrett Anderson, left, and Ana Lopez in One Thousand Pieces (photo by Todd Rosenberg)




For a work as large-scale as One Thousand Pieces, balancing reality with imagination becomes a matter of intricate cooperation; Cerrudo had to communicate a vision that involves exceptional complexities in every facet of dance production, and to do so within a relatively short time frame. One Thousand Pieces showcases an understanding of how to bring the creative abilities of many individuals together effectively, and that's evidence not only of the clarity of Cerrudo's own vision, but also of his ability to sythesize what he imagines with what those he works with also dream. He describes the process in individual terms as he talks about each part of the production and his interaction with all of the other artists involved. "Even working on the movement with the dancers," he says, "you might ask them to do a specific step, and they might not do it the way you originally imagined. Maybe they did something even better, though, so then that becomes part of what you see on stage. It's not just what I think; it's affected by many people and many factors."





Hubbard Street dancer Jonathan Fredrickson in One Thousand Pieces (photo by Todd Rosenberg)




That may be what Alejandro Cerrudo really managed to capture when he set out to express in dance something of the myriad shades and shapes that someone might see in pieces of richly tinted glass. Working in a medium much more dynamic, Cerrudo creates an ever-changing canvas, mixing the colors of his own creative vision with the individual creativity of a mosaic of other artists. "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso once said, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is." Of course, Picasso never had the chance to see One Thousand Pieces.





Hubbard Street dancers in One Thousand Pieces (photo by Todd Rosenberg)




This post originally appeared at aotpr.com



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Beer Delivery Drone Grounded By FAA, Leaves Ice Fishermen Out In The Cold

There's nothing quite like a day of ice fishing to get away from it all. Just you, some friends, a couple of beers, and ... a beer delivery drone.



At least, that was the hope for Lakemaid Beer, a Minnesota brewery considering using drones to deliver frosty ones to anglers out on the lake. After the FAA caught wind of the operation, however, Lakemaid's top-down approach to help drinkers go bottoms-up has been grounded.



"As much as [the FAA] thought it was a funny idea, it was a violation of all sorts of codes," Jack Supple, Lakemaid Beer Company President, told ABC News. "I understand why they had to shut it down, but I would like to do it for our fishermen."



The company released a YouTube video last week demonstrating what a beer delivery drone service would look like, complete with an input of map coordinates to locate an ice fisher's hut out on the vast frozen lake.



Supple told to NPR their beer delivery drone never flew more than 400 feet above the ground, and they believed it would therefore fall under less-strict regulations as a model aircraft, though he was mistaken. In 2007, the FAA specifically excluded model aircraft used for business purposes from the 400-foot rule.



The brewers "figured a vast frozen lake was a lot safer place than [what] Amazon was showing on 60 Minutes," added Supple, referring to the online retail giant's own forays into drone delivery services.



According to a release from Lakemaid, the FAA isn't expected to issue a formal set of regulations for commercial drone use until 2015, meaning we'll all have to wait for our suds from above.



WATCH Lakemaid's original beer delivery drone promo, below:



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Here Are The Most Popular Books Of 2013 From The Nation's Top-Ranked Library

Roger Goodell Still Says 'NO' To Taking Marijuana Off NFL's Banned Substance List

NEW YORK, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Despite the legalization of marijuana in the two states represented by teams in the Super Bowl, pot will remain on the National Football League's banned substance list, said commissioner Roger Goodell on Friday.



Both Colorado and Washington, home of the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks, who will clash in the NFL's championship game on Sunday at MetLife Stadium, have legalized pot, prompting some to question if the league should simply stop testing for marijuana and abide by state laws.



Washington state and Colorado voted in 2012 to legalize recreational marijuana use, though the drug remains illegal under federal law.



Goodell made it clear during his annual state of the league address ahead of Sunday's showcase that the NFL will continue to take a serious and dim view on players testing positive for pot.



"This has been something that has been asked several times and I'll try to be as clear as I possibly can," said Goodell. "It is still an illegal substance on a national basis.



"It's something that's part of our collective bargaining agreement with our players.



"It is questionable with respect to the positive impact but there is certainly some very strong evidence to the negative impacts, including addiction and other issues."



Advocates of legal pot are using the Super Bowl to promote their message. On five billboards near the site of the big game in New Jersey, the Marijuana Policy Project questions the NFL's ban on pot use by players, asserting in one that pot is "safer than alcohol  and football."



Seahawks coach Pete Carroll joined the debate earlier in the week, saying the league should not rule out allowing players to use medical marijuana to manage pain, if medical science supports the idea.



Goodell did not rule out the possibility but on Friday again reiterated his stand that the league would follow the lead of doctors in determining whether to drop its opposition to players' use of the drug.



"We'll continue to follow the medicine," said Goodell. "Our experts right now are not indicating we should change our policy in any way, we are not actively considering that at this point and time.



"But if it does down the road some time, that's something we would never take off the table if we could benefit our players at the end of the day.



"So I don't see any change in the near future."



Asked if he would submit to a random test of marijuana, Goodell did not hesitate, drawing a hearty laugh from the media with his quick retort.



"I am randomly tested," smiled Goodell. "And I am happy to say that I am clean." (Reporting by Steve Keating in New York, Editing by Gene Cherry)





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Diamonds in the Rough: Illinois' Top Ten Liberal Arts Colleges

When a person thinks about the top schools in Illinois, their first thought more often than not is of Northwestern University, University of Chicago or the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Maybe DePaul University or Loyola University Chicago come to mind as well.



But those schools aren't the only ones in Illinois that garner national attention and rankings. Illinois has some of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation as well. They just often get forgotten since people tend to identify the big universities in a state before the smaller liberal arts colleges.



Let's just call them the diamonds in the rough of higher education. And Illinois is home to some solid schools. We picked out the top 10 based on U.S. News and World Report's list of the top liberal arts colleges across the country.



HERE ARE ILLINOIS' TOP TEN LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES



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These Are The Colleges Accused Of Mishandling Sexual Assault Cases (INFOGRAPHIC)

An unprecedented number of colleges and universities were accused in 2013 of mishandling sexual assault cases, but the only people who know exactly which schools were accused are a handful of attorneys and their staff at the U.S. Department of Education.



In the absence of an official report, The Huffington Post tracked the colleges that are under investigation, face complaints or have received significant criticism for their handling of sexual violence on campus, and plotted them in the map below.



In fiscal year 2013, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights received 30 complaints against colleges and universities alleging failures in the way the schools handled cases of sexual violence. That was nearly double the previous year's tally of 17.



The complaints that the OCR received include allegations specifically related to sexual violence and failures to address them under the gender equity law Title IX, the Education Department disclosed to The Huffington Post. However, the Education Department does not publicly disclose a list of all colleges that are under investigation.



A group of 39 lawmakers penned a letter to the department Wednesday asking that it become more transparent in this regard.



Since Oct. 1 of last year, OCR has already received 13 complaints alleging Title IX violations, making a total of 60 in less than three years.



Colleges and universities receiving federal funding -- which is nearly all of them -- are required under Title IX to respond to incidents of sexual misconduct, assault and harassment on campus, and to have policies in place that attempt to prevent such incidents. The OCR is tasked with enforcing Title IX, and it can open an investigation either proactively or in response to a complaint.



Nearly two dozen schools are currently under investigation, with at least 11 the result of complaints filed by students, faculty and recent alumni. Between 2009 and the present, the OCR opened another 11 proactive investigations with a specific focus on Title IX sexual violence.



If the OCR opens an investigation and finds fault on the part of the higher education institution, the agency often attempts to reach a resolution agreement where it lays out policy reforms the college or university should take. Such an agreement was reached at Yale University in 2012 and at the State University of New York system in 2013. Alternatively, the OCR may refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice.



In extreme cases, the agency can cut off a school from all federal funding, including Pell grants and student loans. This has never happened.



Click on the list of names or the points on the map to see the schools accused of mishandling sexual assault cases:









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Video Of Dog's Rescue From Icy Lake Michigan Will Warm Your Heart On Even The Coldest Day

The video of a Chicago fire crew's rescue of a dog that fell into icy Lake Michigan earlier this month documents the final moments of a situation that could have gone much, much worse.



On the morning of Jan. 10, a woman was walking her dog near Lake Shore Drive and 41st Street when the pet ran onto the frozen lake and fell through the ice, CBS Chicago previously reported.



The video, shared Friday on Reddit, shows a diver pulling the dog out of the water to shore, where it was wrapped in blankets to warm up before being returned to its owner.



The situation was a close call as crews found the dog's owner on the ice trying to retrieve her pet when they arrived on the scene. Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told the Tribune the successful rescue "got a little too close" to tragedy.



That's one lucky doggie.



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Police Discipline Agency Won't Tackle the Tough Cases

The Chicago City Council established the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) with high expectations that IPRA would help reverse a culture of citizen abuse and officer impunity in the Chicago Police Department. As we approach the seventh anniversary of IPRA's creation, it's apparent the agency has flopped.



Calls to revamp the police department's broken disciplinary process reached a crescendo in 2007 after drunken off-duty police officer Anthony Abbate was caught on video pummeling a female bartender who had refused to continue serving him. Critics (I was among them) demanded reforms, pointing to widespread allegations that Chicago police officers physically and verbally abused citizens on the streets; mistreated and abused suspects and witnesses in their custody; and almost never faced punishment or other repercussions.



The City Council created IPRA to reform this broken system. Disciplinary review under IPRA was taken out of the police chain of command. IPRA was given subpoena power. IPRA was required to report periodically to the public on its activities. An outside director was hired.



But in practice little changed and IPRA today is no better than the system it replaced. Like its predecessor, IPRA rarely "sustains" allegations against police officers in the many cases in which citizens claim they have been abused by on-duty police officers. And, also like its predecessor, IPRA routinely ducks the important cases -- in particular, cases where officer misconduct caused innocent citizens to spend years or decades in prison for crimes they didn't commit.



Recently, IPRA issued its required quarterly report. The report included a self-congratulatory announcement that IPRA had "sustained" 80 complaints of officer misconduct, more sustained cases than in the previous three quarters combined.



But close review of the sustained cases reveals IPRA conducting business as usual. Over half of the sustained complaints were for domestic violence or other off-duty misconduct. Altercations between police officers always get strict scrutiny, and five of the sustained complaints were for exchanges of profanities or punches involving just police. Inattention to duty (typically the accidental discharge of a firearm or a taser) drew sustained findings in about a quarter of the cases. Most of the time, in cases involving allegations of police abuse of citizens, IPRA rejected the substantive allegations and imposed token discipline for technical violations, such as failing to complete paperwork. Of the 80 cases, less than a handful included a sustained finding that an officer had committed misconduct in the line of duty directed at a Chicago citizen.



Measured against the total universe of allegations, the rate of sustained findings is miniscule when an on-duty officer was accused of abusing a citizen. IPRA imposes discipline in less than 2 percent of those cases. A police officer who mistreats a citizen while on the job can be virtually assured he won't face discipline.



Worse, IPRA continues to ignore the important cases. For example, last November, IRPA refused to sustain charges against the police officers accused of railroading Robert Wilson for a crime he didn't commit.



Wilson (whom I represented) was coerced into confessing to the brutal slashing of a nurse on Chicago's south side, convicted and sent to prison, where he remained for over eight years until he was exonerated. The case against Wilson fell apart when the nurse victim recanted her identification. Police had hidden the fact that the attack on the nurse was part of a pattern of knife attacks committed over the course of several weeks by a mentally ill man. The nurse victim revealed that police showed her a highly suggestive photo lineup shortly after the attack, as she lay in her hospital bed.



IPRA had to decide whether to impose discipline on the police officers who were responsible for Mr. Wilson's wrongful conviction. IPRA's files included Wilson's sworn testimony describing how he was beaten and intimidated into confessing, the nurse victim's sworn testimony describing how she was improperly manipulated into her false identification of Wilson, the sworn testimony of the mentally ill man admitting that he was the one who committed the crime, and Wilson's official Certificate of Innocence. IPRA also knew that officer James O'Brien, who conducted the interrogation of Wilson, had a record of being accused of beating and coercing suspects. O'Brien had worked for Jon Burge, the police commander who was sent to prison for lying about torture of suspects in his custody.



If all that weren't enough, IPRA also knew that in March 2012, the City of Chicago had agreed to pay Wilson $3.6 million to settle his civil rights claim against the accused officers. Still, IPRA found that the available evidence "was not sufficient to either prove or disprove" that the accused officers had coerced Wilson's confession and manipulated the nurse's ID. Case dismissed.



The decision in Wilson's case wasn't a surprise. The Chicago Police have never disciplined any of the police officers involved in the scores of cases in which a Chicago Police investigation has been determined to have caused a wrongful conviction.



Small wonder that Chicago has earned the moniker "False Confession Capital of the United States." Every police officer in the city knows he can beat a confession from a suspect and get away with it.



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Stephen Colbert Is Pretty Sure Why This Fox Host Loves Football So Much

There's been a push for NFL players to use medical marijuana more widely to relieve brain injuries, and the issue is divisive amongst sports pundits. Bob Beckel of Fox News found himself on the side defending anything that helps the players out, because in his words, “In this day and age, people are not very happy in their lives. The one thing they’ve got to look forward to is football.”



Hmm, what could one of the hosts of "The Five" possibly know about being not very happy in life?







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Whole Foods Moving Into 7 Former Dominick's

Whole Foods Market has acquired seven shuttered Dominick’s stores — four in Chicago and three in the suburbs — and will open in them in a year.



“Whole Foods Markets takes 12 to 15 months, on average, to open a store, so [the wait time] is not unusual,” company spokeswoman Allison Phelps said Friday. “Each store is unique to the community and we take our time making sure it reflects that and is a special place for each neighborhood.”



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Obama Library Foundation Launched

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new foundation is forming with President Barack Obama's blessing to develop his future presidential library.



Longtime Obama friend Marty Nesbitt and former White House official Julianna Smoot are creating the nonprofit, which will evaluate potential library sites. Chicago and Hawaii are already vigorously competing. The group will hire staff and take proposals from potential host sites later this year. Obama will make the final decision and the foundation will announce it in early 2015.



The foundation will raise money to cover its costs, but will build the library after Obama leaves the White House. Obama won't be involved in fundraising while in office, but the foundation board members say they'll keep him updated about the project.



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Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan Pushes $1.5 Billion In Corporate Tax Cuts

By Karen Pierog



CHICAGO, Jan 30 (Reuters) - With big Illinois state income tax increases set to partially expire in 2015, the Democratic head of the state's House of Representatives on Thursday introduced a bill to permanently reduce the corporate tax rate.



The cut proposed by House Speaker Michael Madigan would reduce revenue to the state treasury by $1.5 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1. It would set the corporate income tax rate lower than it was before a temporary increase was imposed in 2011, when Illinois also imposed a steep hike in the personal income tax rate. The tax increases were aimed at paying down the state's huge backlog of unpaid bills.



Madigan's proposal comes as the state is facing a tough budget for the next fiscal year given the big hole the tax rate rollbacks will cause.



As for the personal income tax rate, which will drop to 3.75 percent from 5 percent in 2015, Steve Brown, Madigan's spokesman, said that would be addressed as the legislature debates the fiscal 2015 budget Governor Pat Quinn is scheduled to unveil next month.



Madigan's proposal would reduce the corporate tax rate to 3.5 percent, below where it stood prior to the corporate tax hike in 2011. The new tax would create a combined corporate tax rate of 6 percent, with the state's 2.5 percent personal property replacement tax taken into account.



Illinois' corporate income taxes already are set to move back next January, from the current rate of 7 percent to a new level of 5.25 percent on business profit. Prior to 2011, the rate was 4.8 percent.



Madigan's rate cut would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2014, and would reduce revenue for the first six months of the calendar year by as much as $700 million, according to a statement from the speaker.



Madigan in a statement pitched the new plan as a way to improve the state's business climate.



"I think you make up (the tax revenue loss) partly by making Illinois a more attractive place for employers to hire and expand and locate," Brown said.



He added that Madigan's plan emerged as part of an examination of the state's "hodge-podge" approach to doling out tax breaks to business.



Illinois in recent years has offered millions of dollars in tax breaks to keep CME Group Inc and Sears Holdings Corp in the state, but last year it turned down Archer Daniels Midland Co, a company that stayed in Illinois anyway.



Republican lawmakers, who opposed the 2011 tax hike, had been worried that Democrats who control the legislature would act to make permanent the higher rates.



"I'm glad there is now a recognition that their tax increase is driving jobs out of Illinois," said Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno in a statement.



"On the surface we are thrilled that the majority party seems to finally be getting the message that something needs to be done, but remain cautious about how they intend to make up the lost revenue," House Republican Leader Jim Durkin said in a statement.



Corporate income tax collections, which totaled $3.17 billion in fiscal 2013, are expected to fall to $2.76 billion in fiscal 2016, the first full fiscal year affected by the tax rate roll-back, according to a three-year projection by the governor's budget office.



Personal income tax collections, which hit $16.5 billion in fiscal 2013, would drop to $12.4 billion in fiscal 2016. The 2011 tax hike increased the flat-rate personal income tax to 5 percent, a two-thirds increase over the previous level.



The projection also indicated that Illinois' budget deficit would rise from $1.9 billion in fiscal 2015 to $4.1 billion in fiscal 2016.



The fate of the tax rate hikes remains a concern for Wall Street credit rating agencies, which rate Illinois' general obligation bonds lower than those of any other state. Illinois was able to relieve some credit pressure by passing a comprehensive public pension reform law in December, but that law has been challenged by unions and other groups claiming it violates a state constitution protection against diminishing pensions of government workers.





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Former GOP Congressman's Son Sentenced For Selling Oxycodone To High School Students

George Washington Crane V, the son of former Rep. Phil Crane (R-Ill.), was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison for selling oxycodone pills to high school students and recent high school graduates in Virginia over a number of years. One of Crane's former clients fatally overdosed after taking the drug, according to The Washington Post.



In justifying his sentence, Federal District Court Judge Liam O’Grady said Crane, who is 48, poses "an enormous danger to our community." His sentence was close to the prosecutors' request of 15 to 20 years. Crane's attorneys asked for a lesser sentence of four years.



The Washington Post reported that Crane apologized during the sentencing hearing. He said he wanted to send his 'condolences' to the family of the 20 year old who overdosed on the drugs he sold, whom he described as a friend and a "good person."



"You chose a particularly vulnerable group of young people to supply, and you did it while you yourself were not addicted to oxycodone," the judge said to Crane.



Crane's father represented Illinois' 8th district from 1969 to 2004. At the time of his failed reelection bid in 2004, he was the longest-serving Republican member of the House of Representatives. He once took a leave of absence from Congress and entered a Maryland rehabilitation program to recover from alcoholism in 2000.



Phil Crane's brother, former Rep. Dan Crane (R-Ill.), also served in Congress. He was implicated in a congressional sex scandal and admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female page in 1980.



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Having a Son Has Ruined Football for Me

I grew up just outside of Philadelphia; my formidable years coincided with a time in Philadelphia Eagles football that is known simply as 'The Buddy Ryan Era.' The defense and mindset that Coach Ryan brought to the Eagles formed how I think about football and my opinion of how it should be played. The 'defense first, hit harder then them' edict that Ryan put into practice was so exhilarating to watch that I could spend an entire Sunday preparing for and watching an Eagles game and not care if they lost 10 to 7.



I never once thought of those games as boring, and it never occurred to me that my team should focus more on the offensive side of the ball. Even though those Eagles had one of the most electrifying quarterbacks that I had ever seen in Randall Cunningham, I just didn't care if they scored. The offense would go three and out more times in a season than I could count, they couldn't win very much and I am hard-pressed to remember many names that played on that side of the ball, with the exception of Cunningham. The Eagle's defense, in contrast, punished opposing players. Men like Wes Hopkins and Andre Waters patrolled as safeties in a way that made the players on the other team quake. Entire games would go by without a pass attempt over the middle of the field, because no one wanted to get hit by Wes and Andre. At the risk of sounding like an old man, I want people who grew up watching football over the last decade or so to know they aren't watching football -- at least not the football I grew up with. You are watching millionaires play catch.



If you don't believe me, ask Troy Aikman how his shoulder feels, mention the name 'Clyde Simmons' to him as you do and see if he doesn't look just a bit scared, still, to this day. I witnessed Clyde chase poor Troy, flushing him out to his right, Clyde hit Troy in his left side, wrapped him up and drove his body into the hard surface with the full force of his massive frame following right behind. If I remember correctly, Troy separated his shoulder that day and if my memory serves further, Clyde didn't check to see if Aikman was okay or offer him a hand-up -- Clyde screamed at Troy, pointed and walked away pleased that he had done his job. It was like watching a war; there was no mercy and no regard for anyone who wasn't on your side. Ask Ernest Givens how he got his nose broken, ask every offensive lineman that Reggie White literally lifted, one-armed, and threw aside like a paper doll on his way to the then NFL sack record. My point is, I grew up watching violent, punishing football, and I loved it.



That is why I was surprised to hear the following words come out of my mouth when my 7-year-old son Cole was invited to play on a football team: "That's very nice of you to ask, thank you for thinking of him... but Cole isn't allowed to play football." When the father who coached the team asked why I refused, I, only partially joking, asked him if he would be comfortable with his son coming to my house to play if I said that the boys were going to go into our backyard, get a running start and run as fast as they can into my house. "Don't worry," I told him, "I'll give them a plastic helmet to wear."



Before that moment, I never once considered if I would comfortable with my son playing football. He was -- and still is -- a committed baseball player, and I never imagined I would need to have an opinion. It just never came up. The boy in me who was raised on Buddy Ryan football was shocked to hear himself not just say no, but to have such a protective and visceral response. It was a confusing moment; my ego and pride were alive with the notion that someone thought my son would be a good football player, but the idea of him banging his head into other people terrified me. That was many years ago, before I had ever heard the words 'chronic traumatic encephalopathy' (CTE). To be perfectly honest, at that time, I'd never heard of an NFL player taking their own life and never once did I wonder about what happens to the men who play football, after they leave my television screen.



As Cole has grown, I have gotten more inquiries. One very kind man approaches me twice a year to ask if Cole will come play Quarterback for his rather competitive team. I wish that I could say yes. The kid in me who watched the Eagles growing up wants Cole to play and the part of me that is proud of my son hates holding him back, but the father in me wins this argument every time with one simple thought, "My kid need his brain, I can't take that risk."



Andre Waters took his own life in 2006, only four months after the first time someone asked me if my son wanted to play football. I loved watching that man play football, and now he is dead. Pathology reports indicated that Water's brain tissue was that of what would be expected in an "85-year-old man" and that it had characteristics of a person in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Waters was 44 years old when he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Dr. Bennet Omalu said at the time of his death that if Andre had lived for another 10 to 15 years, he would have been, "fully incapacitated." That news when I read it on ESPN, made me sad for every time that I cheered him on. I felt complicit in his death and my love for football has been waning ever since.



I didn't watch one game last season after I listened to Malcolm Gladwell deliver a speech to the University of Pennsylvania about CTE. Mr. Gladwell showed a great resolve when he brought his feelings about CTE directly to a school that lost a player, Owen Thomas, to an allegedly CTE-related suicide. I walked away from that speech knowing that shouldn't be part of anyone else getting hurt, even if I was just watching.



I can't imagine that I would have experienced such a moving response to the news of these men and their deaths if I were not a parent. I began periodically watching NFL football again this year after deciding that my opinion, no matter how well-intended, cannot and should not interfere with the will of another person. The men that play professional football are adults and they can decide how much risk they are willing to absorb in an effort to experience the rewards of playing. I would be lying if I didn't admit to being greatly conflicted on this issue. I do love watching football, but I don't respect myself as I sit down to take in a game.



What I can do with a clear conscience is stop supporting with my dollar or my backing any form of football that is played by a child or young adult who can't cognitively process the danger they incur with thoughtfulness to the long-term risk possibilities. Children can't and shouldn't be expected to have foresight on topics such as this, especially when the allure is so grand -- hell, I can't even stop watching on Sunday. I'm quite certain that my little stand isn't going to make a dent in the popularity of American football, and it isn't my intention to talk you out of watching or in any way infer that parents who let their children play are wrong to do so.



I am completely aware that football has helped instill lessons about teamwork and perseverance in millions of young people, most of whom will not develop CTE. This article is not a judgment or condemnation of any parent's decision; I only wanted to share how being a parent has changed the way that I look at this game, a game that I loved with all of my heart for most of life.



The memory of the men whose lives have been altered by football-related injuries haunt me as I watch. I'm genuinely interested in seeing where the future takes me. I wonder if I'll be able to break free of the amazing memories that I have of the warriors that played defense in Philadelphia when I was a boy, to follow my conscience and stop watching football. At the moment, the exhilaration of the game is winning out, a fact that I am not proud to admit and will think about as I watch the big game on Sunday.



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Wanna Drink Like A Famous Person This Weekend? Here's How Bill Murray Gets Down.

Eschew your boring regular habits this weekend by drinking like...



Bill F***ing Murray!












Back in the fall, the legendary actor and comedian invested in a new brand of alcohol -- Slovenia Vodka, a buckwheat spirit distilled (not shockingly) in a Slovenian town.



Of the vodka, Murray told Esquire, "Different vodkas have different effects. ... I have a quieter voice when I drink it. I drink gin, and once, when drinking gin, I made a large man cry. Not with this. This makes you kind of sweet."



But how does one drink vodka at Bill Murray's house? With an ice luge, of course! As he told Esquire, the actor has been throwing annual Christmas parties where vodka is poured down an icy chute into shot glasses. If you'd like to make such a chute, you'll need to clear out enough space in your freezer for a medium-sized plastic container full of water. (Or, if you're fancy, you can buy a mold.)



Once you've filled the container -- not all the way to the top -- prop one end up so your finished product will slope downward, and let the freezer do its job. To carve out an 'S' shape (or more of a 'Z' shape) you can use one of three methods:



1. Salt: Use a spoon or a screwdriver to carve a path on the surface of the ice. Put some salt in the path and let sit for 15 minutes. Scoop out the salt and smooth out the path using the spoon. Repeat two or three times. (Hat tip to Gizmodo for this one.)

2. Force: Use a spoon or a screwdriver to chisel a path on the surface of the ice. Keep going.

3. Blowtorch: Not recommended unless you know what you're doing. And you probably don't.



Pouring hot water slowly and carefully down the luge can help smooth it out. Ta-da!



Now, if you'd like to drink like Bill Freaking Murray this weekend and don't have time to go about making a large ice sculpture, we've noticed the man has a thing for tequila.













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TSA Agent Angel Velazquez Accused Of Stealing $8,500 From Checked Luggage

The TSA is trying to fire an agent in Chicago after police say he stole $8,500 from a woman's checked luggage.



Angel Velazquez, 56, is facing felony theft charges after he was arrested Tuesday, ABC Chicago reports.



Prosecutors said the 11-year veteran of the agency was caught on surveillance video going through the suitcase of a 48-year-old passenger flying out of Chicago's O'Hare International last November, according to DNAinfo.



Police say the woman put the cash in her suitcase and checked the bag for a flight on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines only to arrive to her destination and find the money missing, DNAinfo reports. Velazquez allegedly hit the cash in a garbage can before returning to collect it and put it in his backpack.



It was unclear why police did not make the arrest sooner.



Velazquez's arrest comes after the Government Accountability Office issued a report last summer indicating TSA misconduct was up 26 percent in the past three years.



Velazquez's arrest makes for a total of three TSA agents to be arrested this January nationwide. A TSA supervisor in Charlotte, N.C. was fired after being charged with misdemeanor larceny in connection to a stolen iPad while an agent in Nashville was arrested after he was allegedly found passed out drunk in a running vehicle.



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The Funniest Someecards Of The Week

'My Mary Cate,' Charismatic Chicago Toddler, Showing Schoolkids What Different Looks Like

Story by Howard Ludwig, courtesy DNAinfo Chicago:



Mary Cate has already had four surgeries. Children diagnosed with Apert syndrome can have upward of 60 surgeries throughout their lifetime, Lynch said.



Surgery on the skull is vital, as the brain will outgrow the malformed cranium. Without surgery, this can cause developmental delays, along with the loss of vision, hearing and fine motor skills. Mary Cate has already had one such surgery as well as two other procedures that separated her fingers and toes.



Mary Cate now has four fingers on each hand. Her speech is a bit delayed, likely because of the shape of her mouth. And she looks different. Other than that, she's typical little girl who plays with dolls, enjoys stacking blocks and is reluctant to take a nap.



That's the little girl that her mom wants everyone to know, and she's made a concerted effort to do just that. When Mary Cate was 5 months old, she visited her mother's grade school alma mater — Most Holy Redeemer Elementary School in suburban Evergreen Park.



Mary Cate has since visited 15 schools, mostly Catholic elementary schools on the Southwest Side and in the southern suburbs.



Read the whole story at DNAinfo.



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19 WTF Facts That Will Make You Extremely Upset

The world just sucks sometimes.



Contemporary pop culture is full of both lies and truths that are hard to accept. The way you've come to think about "greats" like John Wayne and even the animated star of Pokémon is probably all wrong. And sorry, but Twinkies simply aren't the everlasting dessert you hoped them to be. This is all probably a lot to handle, but we're confident you can make your way through the following 19 truths...



You're going to be pretty mad after this.









1. Michael J. Fox's middle name doesn't start with a "J."







Fox's middle name is Andrew.



As there was already a registered Michael Fox in the Screen Actors Guild, the future "Back To The Future" star had to register another name. He considered going by his actual middle name, but instead decided to put down "Michael J. Fox" as a tribute to actor Michael J. Pollard.





2. Twinkies do not have an infinite shelf life.







The Hostess treat doesn't last forever and has a shelf-life of about 45 days. This is actually an improvement on the recipe that existed before the recent Twinkiepocalypse, which gave us treats that last longer than the previous shelf life of about 26 days.



And if you'd rather eat something that you wouldn't believe could last forever anyway, here's a recipe for homemade Twinkies.





3. The author of the "Nancy Drew" series was completely made up.







Carolyn Keene is not a real person and is actually a pseudonym for many different authors.



The writer and publisher, Edward Stratemeyer, hired ghost writers to take all of his detective-fiction ideas for the Nancy Drew series and turn them into full books. The first ghost writer was named Mildred Wirt Benson and she is the real author of "The Secret of the Old Clock," along with the next two books. She was only 24 at the time. As all writers had to sign confidentiality agreements about the fact that Carolyn Keene wasn't a real person, Benson's name has been largely lost in popular history.





4. Nicolas Cage got paid $20 million to play Superman ... even though he never actually did.







Tim Burton almost got to direct a version of Superman starring Nicolas Cage. Costume test photos even exist.



This version would have been called "Superman Lives," and Cage has been quoted as saying, "Did I have a concept of how to play the character? Yes, and I can tell you it would have been gutsy. So maybe Warner Brothers got scared because they had two artists that weren’t afraid to take chances."



Would this movie have been good or terrible? That may be an unsolvable question.





5. "The Great Cat Massacre" is actually a real event that exists in history.







French apprentice printers in the late 1730s came to hate how much better the French aristocracy treated their cats over the workers, leading primped felines to become symbols of classist oppression. In a display of opposition that may have killed the Internet in contemporary times, French workers began kidnapping cats to slice them open and hang them by nooses in the streets.



According to the book "The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History," the whole thing was considered deeply hilarious and an early moment of triumph for the French working class.





6. President Richard Nixon hated Bill Cosby and allegedly had the FBI wiretap him.







Camille Cosby, Bill Cosby's wife since 1964, revealed to Oprah that her family was audited four times in one year, had their phones wiretapped and were subjected to FBI visits at their house and on set. All of this was because Bill Cosby was put on Nixon's famed "Enemies List," along with celebrities such as Paul Newman and Barbra Streisand.





7. The actors that played C-3PO and R2-D2 hate each other very much.







Kenny Baker (R2-D2) does not remember his days with actor Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) fondly at all and has even said that Daniels is "the rudest man I've ever met."



In a longer quote, Baker explained, "He's been such an awkward person over the years. If he just calmed down and socialized with everyone, we could make a fortune touring around making personal appearances. I've asked him four times now but, the last time, he looked down his nose at me like I was a piece of s***. He said: 'I don't do many of these conventions - go away little man.' He really degraded me and made me feel small - for want of a better expression."





8. Subway once released an official statement saying that "footlong" is a trademarked name and not an obligation of the length of a sandwich.







After being sued multiple times over their popular "$5 Footlongs" not always being an actual a foot long, despite advertising that was pretty explicit about the size, the company had the nerve to make the following statement ...



"With regards to the size of the bread and calling it a footlong, "SUBWAY FOOTLONG" is a registered trademark as a descriptive name for the sub sold in Subway Restaurants and not intended to be a measurement of length."



Early in 2013, the company claimed they'd ensure all future "Footlongs" would truly be a foot long.





9. Filming of "The Hobbit" disappointed Sir Ian McKellen so much that it made him cry.







When McKellen had to film a scene featuring his character, Gandalf, standing among a large group of dwarves, the studio wouldn't let him film with the other actors and instead surrounded him with pictures of the dwarves. McKellen said that he began to break down and cry, accidentally saying into his live microphone, "This is not why I became an actor."



Nowadays the actor seems to be having quite a bit more fun performing alongside his friend Sir Patrick Stewart in two Broadway plays.





10. The creator of the famous Loch Ness Monster picture admitted it was a hoax on his deathbed decades later.







At the age of 93, Christian Spurling confessed from his deathbed that "The Surgeon's Photo" of the Loch Ness Monster was a complete hoax masterminded by his stepfather, Marmaduke Wetherell.



You see, Wetherell was employed by The Daily Mail and had an assignment to report on the Loch Ness sightings. When the paper published that his only findings ("monster" tracks) were a hoax and that he'd been fooled, Wetherell decided to get back at the paper. He enlisted his stepson, Spurling, who was a professional model maker, to create a fake monster head and then took a picture of the head floating in Loch Ness. The two hired "the surgeon," gynecologist Robert Wilson, to turn the photo into the newspaper to add legitimacy to the hoax.



Just last year, The Daily Mail published another photograph of the Loch Ness Monster, but then again, so did HuffPost.





11. John Wayne felt the Native Americans deserved their mistreatment and were selfish for wanting to keep the land.







Just read this Playboy interview...

PLAYBOY: That's hardly the point, but let's change the subject. For years American Indians have played an important—if subordinate—role in your Westerns. Do you feel any empathy with them?



WAYNE: I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them, if that's what you're asking. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

Also, Wayne's scenes apparently had to be filmed in the morning, because in the afternoon he was a "mean drunk."





12. Multiple "Marlboro Men" have died from lung cancer.







Throughout the late 1970s, Eric Lawson played the iconic "Marlboro Man", serving as the centerpiece of various ads depicting him as a rugged, smoking cowboy. On Jan. 10th, Lawson died of lung cancer, the same cause of death that multiple Marlboro men before him have succumbed to.



Smoking is estimated to be responsible for around 443,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone.





13. Ash Ketchum is actually a pathetic Pokémon trainer.







Ketchum has only caught 43 of 649 Pokémon and has never made it past the tournament semi-finals in his 14-year quest to become a Pokémon Master. This means Ketchum actually hasn't even come close at all to fulfilling the cartoon series' tagline, "Gotta catch 'em all."



If you want to begin your own quest to become a Pokémon master and succeed where Ketchum utterly failed, here's a good place to start.





14. The movie "Saving Mr. Banks" was pure Disney propaganda. The author of "Mary Poppins" deeply hated the film version of her book.







"Saving Mr. Banks" essentially rewrote history and poured salt on old wounds in their portrayal of "Mary Poppins" author P.L Travers as an uptight woman who just needed to learn the value of "Disney Magic." Margaret Lyons of New York Magazine has an amazing takedown.



One of the best examples of the film's propaganda-fueled rewriting of history comes at the end of "Saving Mr. Banks," when Travers is depicted as crying tears of relief and joy because, despite her earlier reservations, the movie version of "Mary Poppins" turned out wonderful. Although it is true that Travers cried, according to the biography "Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P.L. Travers," by Valerie Lawson, those were tears of sadness and anger.



And Travers actually didn't even get an invite to the premiere. She had to force her way in to watch.





15. While you may have loved "Pride & Prejudice," Mark Twain and many other iconic writers thought it was garbage.







The writing of Jane Austen was despised by authors like Virginia Woolf, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charlotte Brontë, but the most biting criticism seems to have come from Mark Twain in the quote below.

I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin bone!

16. Vanilla Ice broke up with Madonna.







If you didn't already know, Vanilla Ice and Madonna used to date.



During an interview in 2011, Ice declared that the material girl was a "great lover," but also revealed, "I broke up with her after she printed that book because I was hurt to be an unwitting part of this slutty package."





17. If "The Simpsons" aged normally, Bart would now be older than Marge was in the first season.







Basically, this should just make you feel super old. Sorry. When the show premiered in 1989, Marge Simpson was supposed to be 34, while Bart was 10. In the show's 25 seasons, Bart would now presumably be older that Marge was when "The Simpsons" first aired.



Of course, the Simpsons family doesn't age, but the show has given a glimpse at times of what older versions of the characters would look like.





18. American Airlines kicked Magic Johnson off their plane so Mark Cuban could take a date to Las Vegas.







Long before the days of his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks and starring role in "Shark Tank," Cuban bought a lifetime flight pass from American Airlines. The pass even required the airline to kick passengers off the plane in case Cuban ever showed up and wanted to get on.



In an interview with Billy Bush, Cuban explained that he'd once tried to use the pass go to Las Vegas with a date. When he arrived and found the flight was already full, Cuban said American Airlines decided to kick Magic Johnson off the plane.



The two would later come head-to-head in a bidding war for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, a battle that Johnson ended up winning.





19. Nickelback lullabies exist.







Two lullaby versions of Nickelback "classics" exist, and you can buy both of them on Amazon.



One five-star review reads, "This is my son's favorite band...we really dig this album and Mom's being a good sport because everyone chills out." A three-star review was upset that the lullaby artist was simply making a cash grab and wasn't being, "done by a true fan of the band being covered."



Nickelback was named the rock band of the decade by Billboard in 2009. That should also make you very, very angry.





All images from Getty unless otherwise noted or linked to original source.



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Why This Man's Claim That People 'Choose' to Be Gay Isn't Just Total Bullsh*t -- It's Dangerous

In just under a year, Brandon Ambrosino has made an impressive career for himself by writing pieces for major media outlets in which he plays the contrarian -- an old, worn-out trick that many before him have also used to great success. His essays are titillating -- and drive traffic to the sites that feature him -- because he's a gay man who excuses homophobia and argues against what many queer thinkers and activists, including me, believe.



In a new essay for The New Republic, Ambrosino uses rapper Macklemore's controversial Grammys performance as a jumping-off point to claim that queer people choose to be queer.



In it he writes, "It's time for the LGBT community to stop fearing the word 'choice,' and to reclaim the dignity of sexual autonomy."



He then proceeds to write an essay full of puzzling assertions and cringeworthy inaccuracies like this line that anyone who has spent even a few hours working in or with the queer community knows shouldn't have made it past an editor: "[I]sn't trans activism fueled by the belief that the government has the responsibility to protect all of us regardless of our sexual choices?" No. Being transgender has nothing to do with "sexual choices." Sexuality and gender identity are two totally separate things, which is why you can be trans and straight or trans and gay or trans and asexual.



He also claims that "here in America, we are edging ever closer to post-equality," which, considering how much work we have left to do in this country when it comes to securing equal rights for queer people, would be hilarious if it weren't so foolish and offensive.



But his biggest mistake, and the one that I want to spend some time unpacking to prove just how inaccurate -- and therefore dangerous -- it is, is his inability to distinguish between sexual orientation (or attraction) and sexual identity when it comes to the word "choose."



Of Macklemore's hit song "Same Love," which has been referred to as a "gay anthem," Ambrosino writes:

[The] seven-minute plea for tolerance ... rightly condemn[s] "right wing conservatives [who] think it's a decision, and you can be cured with some treatment and religion." But the chorus bugs me. By its logic, none of us has any control over our sexual identities.

Further into the piece he states:

The aversion to [the word choice] in our community stems from belief that if we can't prove that our gayness is biologically determined, then we won't have grounds to demand equality. I think this fear needs to be addressed and given up. In America, we have the freedom to be as well as to choose to be. I see no reason to believe that the only sexualities worth protecting are the ones over which one has no control.

Finally, he ends his piece by proclaiming, "I can't help wondering whether Macklemore would have thought I deserved a song even if I told him that I could, in fact, change this if I tried, if I wanted to. I chose this."



Scientists and sociologists have argued about why we are the way we are (the best anyone seems to be able to ascertain at this point is that it's some combination of genetics, chemicals and magic unicorn dust), but very few people would claim that they chose their attractions or that they could or can simply change them at will.



However, what we do with our attractions and how we perform them is a choice. I chose to come out of the closet. I choose to have sex with men. I choose to rarely go to gay bars. And so on and so forth. But I didn't choose to be gay.



In fact, I tried my damnedest to not be gay. There is really no way for me to explain how badly it sucked to grow up queer in small-town Wisconsin in the '80s. If I could have chosen to be straight, I would have. And I did try. I spent my study hall periods in ninth grade writing letters to God asking him to make me straight. I spent my nights lying awake, trying with every ounce of my being to convince Jesus to materialize at the foot of my twin bed and take my sick queer desires into his sacred pink heart, where they'd be vanquished and I could finally date a cheerleader and be just like every other guy in my school. When, after I'd been trying for months, it didn't happen, I spent the rest of my freshmen year considering the different ways I could kill myself.



And my experience with trying to change (or choose) my orientation is nothing compared with the experiences of the thousands of men and women who have put themselves or have been put through "conversion therapy" in hopes of become straight -- therapy that has included, at its most benign (and I'm using that term lightly), prayer, and at its worst, gruesome tactics like electroconvulsive therapy, exorcisms and "corrective rape" of queer women. Guess what? There's not a shred of evidence that any of it works. Even Robert Spitzer, the man responsible for writing the landmark study that claimed "highly motivated" queer people could change their orientation, apologized in 2012.



Why does this matter? Well, aside from the fact that claiming that we can choose to be queer (and, by extension, straight) fuels the barbaric practice of "conversion therapy" I just spoke of, it can also have unthinkably terrifying consequences in other ways.



Just weeks ago Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president, stated that he would consider signing a devastating anti-gay bill into law if he gets scientific proof that queer people are made and not born. While, thankfully, Ambrosino's essay isn't "proof" of anything, that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. Essays and studies full of misinformation have been used against us in the past. In one particularly troubling instance, an almost universally refuted study by Mark Regnerus that claimed queer parents are a threat to children was used by a Russian lawmaker to introduce a bill that would strip queer parents of custody of their children.



Though I agree that it should not matter how we are oriented, whether from birth or from choice, and that our access to equal rights and our freedom from punishment should not be contingent on us being "born this way," I do believe we are innately oriented.



And I suspect that in actuality, Ambrosino believes this too. He's just confused (purposefully or not) "orientation" with "identity."



In an effort to make the distinction between the two clear, a friend of mine posed this question to Ambrosino on his Facebook page: At what time and on what date did you choose to be gay (or straight or bisexual or pansexual or asexual)? Not when you realized you were the orientation you are, and not when ou chose to act on your orientation, but when you chose to be that way.



Unsurprisingly, Ambrosino never answered -- and when I asked the same question, no one on my page had an answer for me either (and I'd love to hear from anyone reading this -- leave your answer in the comments section, or tweet it to me). Several people said, "I felt this way when I was...," which instantly invalidated the idea that they'd chosen their orientation because it implied an attraction (or "feelings") that innately existed and therefore ruled out some kind of blank-slate condition or existence that precipitated a necessary choice. Of course attractions can be denied or even lie dormant (someone might not realize they are queer until much later in life, or until they are in a particular situation or meet a particular person), but once the attraction or feeling is addressed or discovered, that doesn't mean they chose that attraction or feeling.



Once again, I want to make it clear that I do believe we should be able to choose whatever we want when it comes to how we experience, manifest and perform our sexuality. And if you were to say to me that you did in fact choose to be gay (or straight or pansexual or whatever other orientation) last Tuesday night at 6:08 p.m., I would fight for your right to choose that, because ultimately, it shouldn't matter. We should be able to love or fuck or not love or not fuck whomever we please and whoever pleases us. And I think that's probably what Ambrosino means. But that's not as shocking or click-baiting as saying queer people choose to be queer. Or maybe he simply wasn't precise enough in his language. But when you are given a platform like the one Ambrosino has been granted (and like the platform that I have) and you have the opportunity to reach and influence thousands of people, you also have a great responsibility to not lead people astray, and to not do harm -- especially not for the sake of being provocative. Because words are important. Words matter. Words have consequences.



I have said before that I am thankful for Ambrosino because he makes me think long and hard about my beliefs, and despite how dangerous his work is, I still feel this way in some respects. But I have the privilege of being an educated, upper-middle-class, white, cisgender man living (relatively) freely in New York City. For so many of my queer brothers and sisters around the world, there is no time to contemplate queer theory or wonder about how or why they are the way they are. They don't have time to read Ambrosino's essay about choosing to be queer -- or my response. They're too busy trying to stay out of their government's crosshairs or looking for a place to sleep after being kicked out of their parents' home. They're too busy choosing to stay alive.



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January Has Been Chicago's Third Snowiest Ever, And More Snow Is Coming

Can't remember a January with this much, practically non-stop snowfall? There's a good reason for that, Chicago.



Though just less than a half inch of snow fell at O'Hare Thursday afternoon, it was enough to make January 2014 the third snowiest on the books in the city's history, the Chicago Tribune reports. Since 1884, only two other Januarys -- 1918's 42.5 inches of snow and 1979's 40.4 inches -- saw more of the white stuff than this year's 33.5 inches.



Making matters worse, another wave of snow is expected to start Friday. National Weather Service meteorologists told NBC Chicago light snow will begin Friday afternoon and grow heavier early Saturday, continuing through to early Saturday evening.



By the time the city's latest bout of snowfall is complete, at least six inches of snow are expected to fall, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.



After the snow is done, temperatures are expected to dip again and Sunday's high is forecast to be around 15 degrees.



Meanwhile, meteorologists are watching yet another storm system that could bring more snow to the Chicago area Tuesday or Wednesday, CBS Chicago reports.



We suppose it could be worse. The hat's still off to you, blizzard of 1979:

Here a Chicago blizzard--Michigan Avenue & Art Institute: #CPL http://ift.tt/1ftBjE0

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 3, 2014

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Fixing My Wife When She's Not Broken

All Doug Zeigler wanted to do was fix what was upsetting his wife. When she finally got through to him about what she needed... it changed everything.



My wife is upset. Not about anything I've done, just upset over daily stressors. My gut reaction is I want to distract her from whatever is bothering her and to get her to smile. I think, "If I can just get her to smile, it will all be OK." In other words, I want to fix whatever's wrong.



But she doesn't need fixing. She needs me to listen and be there for her, not offer up solutions. But that instinctual need to protect and deflect all of the bad from her is drowning out the logic that is fighting to stay at the front lines of this self-warfare. I start by saying something silly, my normal approach to "helping" my wife. The opening salvo launched to combat her frustrations and unhappiness. I'm usually pretty deft at this dance, but this time she just looked at me and said, "Stop trying to fix me and LISTEN." She didn't say it angrily, she just said it matter-of-factly.



So I did exactly that. I sat on the couch, just hearing what she had to say. Not just hearing the words she said, but processing what she said instead of immediately reacting. I will say it was not easy for me to just absorb what she said without trying to deflect her mind from what was causing her stress and anxiety. I even interjected a few times, but managed to stop myself from joking or making a reference to what might help. I was her sounding board; a place to verbally throw her thoughts and feelings that were weighing her down and have them roll down that wall so they didn't infect her mind and spirit. Or maybe I was more like a vomit bag in that case. Either way, she needed to jettison the bad and harmful out of her, and she needed me to handle the onslaught.



It was difficult for me to keep my yap shut, but it was therapeutic for her. She was able to get this off her chest and not "advised" on what to do. She knew what she needed to do before she started spilling her frustrations. I think it's somewhat like a teakettle: she just needed to let off some steam.



It's cliche to say that communication is the key to successful relationships, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Too often (I'm more guilty than most, I'm afraid) men think of communication as just was what words fly out of our mouths, be they poignant or benign. But what about non-verbal communication? According to Psychology Today , a 1967 study done by Albert Mehrabian demonstrates that 55 percent of communication is attributable to body language, 38 percent to tone of voice, and a mere 7 percent of communication is from the actual words spoken. YE GODS! If we're taking into account just the words someone is saying, we're missing out on over 90 percent what's meant to be relayed to us. Hell, even if we get the tone of what's being said along with the words, we're still under 50 percent of total reception. Less than half! If I link that to my knee jerk reaction to want to stem the turmoil in my wife's brain (which honestly begins as soon as I can sense the tone of what she's saying, which effectively cuts off my mind being fully invested in listening. I'm too consumed with trying to correct it to devote my full attention), then I'm clearly not even CLOSE to hearing and comprehending what she's telling me.



So back to this listening thing. Turns out you need to do more than let the words enter your ear and make their way to your brain. You need to multitask: pay attention to the tone of their voice; notice and appreciate the nuances of their facial expressions; take note of hand gestures (even the one-fingered variety). The environment matters too. She's certainly not going to be as frank in, say, a supermarket as she would be in your living room. Little things matter, and by being more aware and using all your senses to listen instead of only using your ears, you'll be communicating on a level you didn't think was possible. It's important to remember, though, that everyone's nonverbal communication is unique to them. So is yours. The upside to this is over time you'll develop a whole unwritten language between one another. No decoder ring needed, either!



This sort of thing takes practice. Considering the years and years of mental programming that went into me wanting so badly to fix the world for those I love, it's not surprising that it can't be undone in just a few sessions of this new way of communicating. I still struggle mightily with it, and I'm certain that I'll continue to struggle with it for some time. But it's worth the effort to try. I connect with my wife so much deeper than I have with anyone else, and I attribute it to my change in approach along with my insanely intense attraction to her on all levels. That sounds cliche too, but again, that doesn't mean it isn't true.



A funny realization that came from all this: all those years of wanting to "fix" whatever was bothering or hurting or stressing out those that I love? All along, it was me that needed the fixing.










This post originally appeared on The Good Men Project.



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Drunken Arctic Goes Head Over Heels

Even in a warmed world, winter can be cold. But is the Arctic wintering down south?



Over the past couple of months, the U.S. has seen the return of something many believed had been lost for good: cold weather.



Although the current temperatures in the eastern U.S. may seem unusually cold, in the context of our history they really aren't. In fact, most of the cold that has made the news lately hasn't been all that chilly compared what was "normal" for the 20th century. The AP explained our short-term memory loss in this article, "Scientists: Americans are becoming weather wimps," the nerdy web comic XKCD captured the sentiment even more concisely.








The bottom line? Because the last decade was the hottest on record (and just a year ago, the U.S. saw its warmest year ever) Americans have grown accustomed to warmer winters that make normal cold feel extreme.



Some then wonder why this winter has been so (normally) cold and why temperatures in Peoria this winter have not been warmed by climate chang eto, say, a balmy 60 degrees F. The climate denial bubble claims that the cold winter weather means that surely CO2 cannot be warming the atmosphere. How can there be global warming if it's snowing outside, after all?



Well, the short answer is that cold winters still happen even in a warmed world, but that doesn't mean it's cold everywhere. In fact, we don't even have to leave the U.S. to find a very striking image of warming. We just have to shift our attention from the East to the West Coast. Alaska, usually snowy and frigid, has had two weeks of record high temperatures. Amazingly, the second half of January has averaged 40 degrees F above normal during some days in the central and western parts of the state.



The persistently jagged jet stream we have witnessed in recent weeks has led most recently to what some have termed a "Drunken Arctic." Stumbling south with polar winds and snow, this unexpected meteorological event seems to have caught our collective attention. And why shouldn't it? It is an unusual enough, if not unprecedented, event. And it has rekindled curiosity over how human-caused climate change may be impacting the jet stream and the weather systems associated with it.



So, is there a climate connection to this strange occurrence? While more study is certainly needed, I have been increasingly impressed by the growing body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that climate change may lead to more persistent meanders in the jet stream. In a world without global warming, the temperature difference between the freezing Arctic and warmer lower latitudes creates a pressure field that confines the jet stream to a relatively tight band around the Arctic, with wave-like meanders characterized by ephemeral "ridges" and "troughs." As the Arctic melts and warms, however, that temperature difference is reduced, and the meanders of the jet stream potentially become more pronounced and more sluggish. The more sluggish and persistent those meanders, the more persistent the patterns of regional warmth where the jet stream pulls warm air northward, and the regional cold where it pulls arctic air south.








Looking at this image of temperature deviations we can see how the Arctic, in its "drunken" meandering, has fallen head over heels, hitting the southeastern U.S. like an over-enthusiastic reveler face-planting in the gutter shortly after closing time. The large purple region over the eastern U.S. represents weather 20 degrees F colder than the 1979-2000 average. Compare that to the massive red expanse over Alaska and Canada, which indicates weather 20 degrees F warmer than the same baseline.



Perfectly encapsulating the upside-down, hung-over Arctic is this remarkable observation, courtesy of Jeff Masters of the popular Weather Underground blog: At 10 p.m. on Jan. 26 the temperature in Homer, Alaska (54 degrees F) was warmer than any other place in the contiguous U.S. except southern Florida and southern California.



As we approach Groundhog Day, celebrated in the iconic nearby town of Punxsutawney, the question we're all asking here in central Pennsylvania of whether or not we'll see an extended winter may in fact depend on what is happening instead thousands of miles to the north in the melting Arctic.



And the very same jet stream configuration responsible for the southward plunging Arctic air mass that chilling the eastern U.S. is associated further to the west with a "ridge" of high pressure that is pushing the warm, moist subtropical Pacific air masses that would normally deliver plentiful rainfall (and snowpack) to California well to the north.



Climate scientists were beginning to suspect a decade ago that the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice might alter the jet stream in precisely this way, favoring conditions eerily like what we are seeing right now in California: unprecedented and devastating drought.



So to conclude, I propose a toast to the Arctic, whose instability should serve as a wake-up call to those steeped in denial. When it comes to kicking our "fossil fuel addiction" (as former president George W. Bush referred to it), let's hope we're not much further from hitting rock bottom. Because when a drunken Arctic leaves Alaska warmer than Georgia in mid-winter, and California as high and dry as it has ever been, we should know we may have a problem.



This commentary was originally published at EcoWatch

Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines (now available in paperback with a new guest foreword by Bill Nye "The Science Guy")

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