No, that's not a headline from The Onion. That's a real question being considered by CBS 2 this morning. Apparently, President Obama's use of the word "ass" has some folks tittering that he needs sit quietly with a bar of soap in his mouth. The best part? While CBS 2 censors the word in the story, they were kind enough to keep it in the url. But, seriously...who cares? With the Gulf of Mexico filling up with oil, a former governor on trial for corruption and a former city police commander on trial for torture perjury, the President's use of a word you hear on any number of primetime network tv shows and songs on the radio and t-shirts and God knows where else warrants this much attention? The people who are concerned about the language he uses are probably the same people who got upset with his "beer summit" last year (as opposed to, say, a Snapple summit). At least he can correctly pronounce the words he uses. And it's not his word choice that we're concerned with, it's the substance of the words and his ability to back them up. In that theme, we'll try to even this out with the following video exploring the words of another person who's been in the news lately: BP CEO Tony Hayward. more ›

Georgette Watson, the 46-year-old principal of Brentano Math and Science Academy in Logan Square, died yesterday while she was having a root canal. According to reports, she was anesthetized, but it's not clear yet if she was under general or local anesthesia. She stopped breathing 40 minutes into the procedure, and despite efforts to revive her, she died. Her autopsy is scheduled for today, but she appears to have had a heart attack. more ›

The end of the year is rapidly approaching, which means it's time for Merriam-Webster to light the world on fire with their pick for 2007 Word Of The Year. This year's winner is...drumroll please..... W00t? We would have picked l33t talk years and years ago maybe, but this year? If we were going to pick something "techy," it probably would have been LOLCat or cheezburger. And Chicago word of the year would have to be... more ›

As if the gorgeous weather wasn't enough reason to call out sick for the week, Columbia College give you another with its 11th annual Story Week: Cities of Words. Sunday kicked off the week of words with an alumni reading, and Monday's reading by Anchee Min about Maoist China was tender, raw and funny. With fifteen events over five days, you can't go to everything, but here's where Chicagoist will be: Tuesday: the Graduate Student... more ›

Which is better, words or music? more ›

Just a reminder that our Intonation Giveaway: The Words and Stuff Version will run through the weekend. So you’ve got two full days to come up with a compelling reason why you should get two weekend passes to Intonation Fest in Union Park on June 24th and 25th. At this point, we’ve been getting some clever entries. We’ve been so entertained by them that we’ve decided to post the winner’s entry once we choose it... more ›

Chicagoist is giving away two more weekend passes to Intonation, but this time you’re going to have to work for it. Even though some people broke the rules and uttered The Words That Must Never Be Spoken in comments, we decided to give away two more passes anyway. Because we love you. What intrigued us most about the last giveaway was that a couple of you believed you should be awarded the passes as a... more ›

Chicagoist needs to pull its corduroy jacket out of the closet, our elbow pads are looking a little too new. Good thing it's Story Week so we can start rubbing some elbows. Story Week is Columbia College’s week of lectures, readings, panel discussions and performances, from authors large and small, local and from away. There’s way too much cool stuff to list here, so we’ll list some of the highlights, but make sure to check... more ›

One of Chicagoist’s favorite movies is Wargames. Apparently, we’re not the only ones. more ›

This weekend, a hip-hop journalism summit meets here in the city to make renewed calls for substance over style with the theme of “Protecting the Future of Minority Media.” more ›