Flower Shoppe

A defiantly "amateur: newspaper that seeks to inform on what's happening, what isn't and what should be, featuring a broad range of contributors and topics. In this issue: News on the Circle Line, HIV Testing, Grocery shopping in Pilsen rated, photos from Alaska, Chicago winters in the context of Sir Walter Scott's Antarctic journey, owning and borrowing cars, Pluto gets demoted from a planet, and interview with Andy van Slyke, analyzing baseball data using Pyhtagorean differentials, the Apocalypse according to the Mayan Calendar, paper consumption, including lyrics with liner notes, and predicting the future using old Science Fiction books, including robots and artificial intelligence.

Features on: Mayor Richard M. Daley's proclamation that he'll make Chicago the greenest city in America and how The Resource Center's projects are already working on this; a memorial to Mark David "Malachi" Ritscher who performed self-immolation protest of the Iraq War; How the Chicago Recovery Alliance affects change through unconventional programs; the story of the survival of a man attacked by a grizzly bear; surveillance cameras in Chicago as part of "Operation Disruption"; the redevelopment of Block 37; how the Great Andamanese and the Sentinelese survived 2006 tsunami using instinct and spirtualism; discussing living through World War II, Nazi-ocuppied France with grandma; the most expensive US House race in history with James Hill of Iowa; The Department of Homeland Security's human trafficking awareness campaign and how its exploitation of fear of women being sold into sex slavery echoes the history of the sensationalist tales of "white slavery" throughout the 20th century, masking real concerns like rights for migrant workers and sweatshop laborers; a review of the Massive Change show and how it only makes yuppies feel better about capitalism; an interview with cryptozoologist Loren Coleman; an interview about "sabermetrics,"; which is the study of baseball statistics; and why everything sucks except sports (mostly).