THE LOCALSBriefly: Evanston really loves this black guy who is running for president.

If Bill Smith's FEC tabulations are to be believed, nearly 80 percent of Evanston donations are going to Barack Obama. Jesus, people!

Hillary's a little more popular north of Dempster. Hmm, what do you think the change is there? Racial makeup? Ooh, isn't that where that woman with the cats lived? OK, yeah that wasn't really funny.

Anyways. You all love Barack Obama so so much. Eek.

Evanstonian bet on Barack [EvanstonNow]

BIZARRE LOGICThe Medill-White House Correspondents Association connection

So the White House Correspondents Association website is hosted on Medill servers. Weird, right?

But rather than point out that Medill is moving closer to the White House while everyone else is putting like 9,127 miles between themselves and the president, I decided to actually figure out what was going on. Yeah, so what follows is an unadulterated transcript of e-mails between me and Ellen Shearer (right), the webmaster (really?) of the WHCA's Medill-hosted site.

Peter -- happy to answer questions. But first, is this for a Daily article?

Why, would that change the nature of your answers? So, I said:

I'd never say never, but for now it's for my personal gratification and possibly for my blog. That said, it could contextualize Medill coverage. Even if you guys dreamed up MC Rove, I doubt anyone would deem it worthy of an article.

Thanks again.

Onwards. About ten minutes later, out came the claws:

Peter -- Karl Rove was a speaker at the Radio-Television dinner, not the WHCA dinner.

Medill coordinates judging of the WHCA awards. We also created and have hosted the Web site, but this fall it will be redesigned and moved off the Medill server so we only will be coordinating the awards judging.Medill coordinates judging of the WHCA awards. We also created and have hosted the Web site, but
this fall it will be redesigned and moved off the Medill server so we only will be coordinating the awards.

Like, who knew those were separate events? Anyways, that answered like one of the questions I originally posed. I guess prejudices aren't always off-base.

THE LOCALSIn Brief: Past the impasse: Bill Smith shows a second emotion

This is more than "news people are talking about." This is news people are angry about.

Apparently Linda LaFianza, whose name is really more lezbot than Republican, is robo-calling residents! Evanston's favorite curmudgeon, Bill Smith, owner and purveyor of EvanstonNow, is not happy. After a brief shpiel, though, he comes to his journalistic senses. He's really against robo-calling from all parties! Yay balance, Bill!

[EvanstonNow]