“I don’t want an option on the ballot that says, ‘None of the Above,’ I want an option that says, ‘It makes me vomit.’” -Molly Ivins, 1996 History, as we learned in high school, has a way of repeating itself. Molly Ivins (1944-2007) was … Continue reading
“I get paid good money to just be who I am: a freak on wheels.” -Jack Blackfelt We have more than 7000 videos in our archive. Most portray interesting people at a particular moment in their lives. One great thing about video is its ability for people to watch many years later and provide perspective about how they’ve changed. This is the first of these updates we will be doing. This update features footage of colorful bike messenger Jack Blackfelt that was … Continue reading
We’re so pleased to announce a brand new initiative that will use our videos in youth programs, both in-classroom and after school. Media Burn has been awarded a grant from the Chicago HIVE Fund for Connected Learning at the Chicago Community Trust. HIVE was seeded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is stewarded by Mozilla. Our project partners are the National Mexican Museum of Art, Yollocalli Arts Reach, the Chicago History Museum, The Lamp, and the … Continue reading
Some of you saw the article in ReelChicago celebrating ten years of mediaburn.org. We’re so proud of what we have achieved and our continuing efforts to make our website more accessible and engaging. For the last several years we have enjoyed hosting interns from the University of Michigan School of Information during their spring break. These interns have been responsible for many of the transformations in our website that have made it more modern and fun to use. This year, our Alternative … Continue reading
No presidential convention has been brokered since 1952, when both Vice President Dwight Eisenhower and Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson needed more than one ballot to get their party’s nominations. This year, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton arrived at their conventions with enough delegates to win. Still, the conventions have been anything but uneventful. Just as the Bernie Sanders people are a thorn in the side of the Hillary Clinton campaign, so was Jerry Brown a force that Bill Clinton’s … Continue reading
“Some people think they can get [a hit] with just laughs and they go off the air.” –Garry Marshall Garry Marshall died on Tuesday. He was 81 and a show biz giant. He is responsible for many of the most popular TV series and movies of all time, including Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, The … Continue reading
“You have to put all your intelligence in your back pocket and you can talk to these people” -Stoney Burke Last night’s Republican production reminded us of conventions past. In 1992, performance artist Stoney Burke provided an inside view for … Continue reading
Chicago baseball fans are traditionally loyal to either the Cubs or White Sox. It’s a classic North Side vs. South Side rivalry that has lasted more than a century. This year’s Crosstown series is just over a week away with the first game to be played at U.S. Cellular on Monday, July 25th. For the occasion we have created a Crosstown Classics tour with Vamonde. To view the tour: 1. On your iPhone, install Vamonde through the App Store (it’s free). … Continue reading
July 2016: Celebrating ten years of Media Burn online It’s been ten years since we launched mediaburn.org. Since then, our videos have been viewed in almost every country in the world, by more than 13 million people. This photo was taken on July 6, 2006, at the newly unveiled Cloud Gate (“the Bean”) sculpture at Millennium Park as our core group prepared for the official launch of mediaburn.org, which was nearly three years in the making. Top row: Jesse Weinberg, Judy Wallenstein, Russell Porter, … Continue reading
“The game is compromise. That’s politics.” -Dan Rostenkowski This month The Atlantic published an article titled “How American Politics Went Insane,” diagnosing the cause of the pervasive political disintegration in Washington, D.C. as “chaos syndrome.” Joining the choir of complaints about the chaos undermining American politics, the author, Jonathan Rauch, offers a new tune: “Our most pressing political problem today is that the country abandoned the establishment, not the other way around.” Rauch contends that in the course of reforming … Continue reading