Ending a tradition, the Art Institute of Chicago aims to require visitors to start paying a fixed admission fee beginning June 3, though it wants to slash prices for younger kids and expand some summer evening hours.

After countless years (I would like to know exactly how many) of offering the wonderful option of paying what you can instead of the full 12$ admission fee the Institute givith and the Institute taketh away by trying to make the 12$ a mandatory voluntary fee, in return they are planing on not just having bankers hours now.

Most of these changes in my opinion are great, not only great but a earthquake to the arts in Chicago and LONG LONG overdue. Having the doors open at a realistic time for working people to view the art is a simple decision. Who can sprint from work grab a friend or family member, see some art before the doors close at 4:30pm (or get harassed by guards at 4:10-4:15) and actually be relaxed enough to enjoy the process?

Apparently the bulk of the visitors were “found to be disproportionately white, educated and affluent.” How can that be a surprise when the hours of operation are so tight and the details of the voluntary fee are in the smallest type possible and if you dare to offer less you are met with attitude and snide looks of disdain. What non affluent, educated, white would be able to or care to jump though those hoops. You want to open the doors to people who don’t come to the Institute? Simple.

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Wal-Mart is willing to do anything to get in your cities, it loves you and wants it bad. It see’s all the money goodwill and hope that it can bring to your life if you would only let it open its door and let you walk into its warm gooey goodness.

Like a abusive spouse Wal-Mart is droping all its bad habbits (like beating you) so that you will let it back into the home.

Over the past few years when it was trying to get into major metropoliton city limits and got MASSIVE resistance it spent money repainting its facade and getting rid of its garish 1980’s blue/white colors for warm and rich browns and vanilla. It spent money reflooring and bringing new fixtures into its worst stores. Places where money hasn’t been spent on looks since it was initially built. Oh and they gave some money to local school districts agian. All in order for you to like them and let them in………….it didnt work.

Phase 3 (really more then that this has been a planned growth for over a decade) is now in the works and you have seen it in your news just might not have noticed all the little things they are doing as a whole (like I said they want you‘re money in a bad way). The following is just the start.

Wal-Mart will scale back sales of guns : see bad PR especially in major cities

Wal-Mart to build in depressed urban areas : lose money in hopes of wooing voters and inter-city officials by showing that they can revitalize an area as opposed to being a parasitic drain.

Walmart Upgrades Health Benefits for Employees : Read close the wording of those agreements

Walmart Plans to Start its Own Bank : The original idea years ago was brick and mortar buildings now its small, only to do instore transactions.

I have watched Wal-Mart fight this fight for almost a decade to no avail but I know that they will get what they want. I know that one city will bend under the bribes pressure and let them in, then the next city and so on each city falling faster and faster. The thing is that whatever they offer will be phased out asap once they get what they want. So please whatever you do if you work for any metro municipality get it all in advance. Don’t alow a fiscal quarter at a time payment or investment. Don’t fall for a based on profit returns donation. Get the money fast and first and by the love of God don’t give them a tax break to build them. PLEASE.

Now you can share what you have learned here with others when you return home to the trailer park.

~Frist Art Center Docent after giving a lecture on two african ceremonial headpeices

I wouldn’t use quotes if there was a symbol at my disposal that expressed the idea of not exactly quoting word for word but really close, minus a pronoun or slightly shifted. When you hear something you didn’t expect everything just kind of grinds to a stop like a wrench in the teeth of gears. So with humility and 20/25 vision I relate what to many could be a serious issue in a social institution but to me is another day in the arts.

The quick and the dirty of the story is that I and a friend went to the Frist Gallery (I thought of changing the names to protect the innocent but honestly that’s annoying) on a Sunday afternoon since we were in the Nashville area due to a old friends wedding. Having a free day we decided to see the many attractions there (Built-to-Scale Parthenon, Old Family Cemetery, Vanderbilt Art Gallery & Jack-in-the-Box since there are none in Chicago).

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“In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service,”

Over the last few weeks there has been an on going argument in the media and most assuredly with customers of Netflix over the seemingly obvious use of a discriminating allocation of company resources towards it’s users. I and many other people have noticed and commented on this since around October of last year, noticing that the speed of shipping had taken a considerable delay on the Netflix side of the postal system (the delay of emails stating arrival of a DVD and emails stating the shipment of a replacement). This fact has been covered by many others not least of which CNN. The part that kind of gets a glossing over is the once debated and now fact use of throttling of high demand DVD’s. Where once before you would set a list of over 30 DVD’s (a policy that Netflix encourages in writing all over their site) and get them largely in order one at a time now has become a race for the bottom of that list where if you are flagged you can wait indefinitely at the end of the pack.Since October I and many others have had a complete lock on top choice films if they are in High Demand. Not a slowing down or a throttling but a slam on the brakes lock. I have waited almost 2 months without change in status for such films as The Brothers Grimm, Flightplan, The Wedding Crashers & The Island. As you can notice the term High Demand is basically a side term for New Release.
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The Weapons of Tomorrow Today?

Click image to play movie. 19mb takes time to load.

Be in any industry long enough and you have to sit through a film crudely produced by a company in hopes of selling you some product, idea, or entirely new paradigm (or even the use of the new word paradigm). They often have graphics produced by preschoolers with clip art books and Elmers glue. Then add music ripped from a movie theater pre-show trivia soundtrack. One of the more interesting a friend sent me was for the “new” Dread Gun that is being produced in hopes of eliminating the need for chemical ammunition. Watch, enjoy and see the future of tomorrow just as the previous generation did when they saw the Jetsons.