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Kayce T. Ataiyero
Preparation is key to tackling tax filing - March 31, 2009 - Tackling your taxes is no small feat, especially when an April 15 deadline is staring you in the face. It can be hard to know if you should prepare your taxes yourself or if you should let a qualified tax professional take the reins.
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Dear Abby
Troubled youngster bothered by lack of trust in parents - April 4, 2009 - DEAR ABBY: I am an 11-year-old with a serious problem. I don't trust my parents. I doubt I ever will. I just can't tell them things. I end up praying to my dead grandpa -- that's OK, but he doesn't give me any answers.
Eric Benderoff
Tech Buzz: Bluetooth earpieces rated by form and function - April 2, 2009 - Thanks to hands-free driving laws, five new choices in a gadget category require our attention.
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Barbara Brotman
Chicago winters: When you bring out the spring clothes shows if you're an optimist or a pessimist - March 21, 2009 - Never mind the glass-half-empty-or-glass-half-full question. There is a better test of whether people are fundamentally optimistic or pessimistic. And right about now, we are poised to take it.
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Steve Chapman
Losing bet on Detroit - April 2, 2009 - If you had bought $1,000 worth of General Motors stock in 2000, your holdings would now be worth less than $40, for a loss of 96 percent. You could have made worse investments in that period—with Bernard Madoff, for one—but not many.
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Steve Dahl
The fine line between massage and torture - March 26, 2009 - I was in the salon at the Saks Fifth Avenue in Boca Raton, Fla., and desperately needed a haircut because I was returning to Chicago for a family event. Francesca cut my hair, and she did a spectacular job. At least I think she did. I was too busy looking at her tummy in the mirror in front of me. She wore hip-huggers and a midriff T-shirt. I think she worked out. After the haircut, I was scheduled for a massage with Tatiana. Her name alone sounds as if it would have made for the end of a perfect Steve Dahl Spa Day. Wrong!
Bill Daley
Add Spanish flair this Passover - April 1, 2009 - Passover is a time when Jews around the world remember the deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt. A ritual dinner or seder has for millennia been central to Passover observances. Wine plays a major role in the seder, with four cups of wine drunk at various points in the meal.
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Julie Deardorff
Giving up milk? Try these instead - March 29, 2009 - Cow's milk may be the ideal beverage for baby cows, but it just doesn't sit well with some Americans. Dairy allergies, lactose intolerance and an interest in healthier beverages have all sparked a proliferation of alternative milk products.
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Amy Dickinson
It's a mystery why book club spurns her - April 4, 2009 - Dear Amy: My husband, children and I live in a lovely old home in a suburb.
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Eric Gwinn
Green fast food - March 12, 2009 - Grabbing green grub on the go for St. Patrick's Day? You'll need the luck of the Irish to find it; fast-food restaurants aren't going crazy with the Irish theme. Here's some green fast food (prices and participation may vary):
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Jon Hilkevitch
Chicago transit: Ideas to reach 1 billion rides a year - March 30, 2009 - Aaron Renn is a Chicago Transit Authority customer who longs for a transit system that "you can rely on without having to build in ridiculous amounts of time to account for delays."
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Steve Johnson
YouTube stars come in many flavors - March 31, 2009 - It's easy to overlook YouTube, so entrenched in everyone's Internet mind-set it's almost just part of the pre-cerebral cortex.
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John Kass
Combine gave Vallas, eventually us, the shaft - April 3, 2009 - The man who should have been finishing his second term as governor of Illinois was on the phone, and he wasn't holding anything back.
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Garrison Keillor
Spring reminds that we'd rather be artists - March 25, 2009 - Spring is a time when we are one nation. In a few weeks, the South will head toward its air-conditioned caves and a cold summer chill will fall on San Francisco, but in spring and fall, we are one people, more unum than pluribus, stepping gracefully to the music of photosynthesis, and not even a sour economy can change that, so Viva sweet spring. I say this as the father of a sandy-haired gap-toothed daughter who jumps up from breakfast to dance the shimmy. With so much pre-adolescence going on around you, it's hard to be glum.
Julia Keller
Paragraph of the week - March 29, 2009 - Imagining if history had turned out otherwise has been the driving force behind several fine works of literature, from Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America" (2004) to "Resistance" (2007), a novel by Owen Sheers that recently was published in paperback by Anchor Books.
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Gail MarksJarvis
Is 'less bad' good enough? - April 3, 2009 - Who would have ever guessed that the phrase "less bad" could make investors feel so good?
Jim Mateja
Mercedes-Benz GLK compact delivers in a big way - March 29, 2009 - The GLK that twists and turns through those narrow European byways in TV ads is a well-appointed piece of fine art with craftsmanship worthy of the Mercedes-Benz name.
Rick Morrissey
New Yankee Stadium truly a sight to behold - April 4, 2009 - NEW YORK — I don't want to say the men of Yankeeville are overcompensating for something, but wow.
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Clarence Page
Obama gets hazy on reefer economics - April 1, 2009 - For all of the keen intellect that President Barack Obama showed in his online town hall meeting, he didn't seem to know much about reefer economics.
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Kathleen Parker
Getting ready to ruuuummmmble - March 30, 2009 - The GOP's identity crisis just got more interesting with the recent media splash of Meghan McCain, daughter of the senator who did not become president.
Phil Rosenthal
Garry Meier joins WGN radio for midday slot - April 3, 2009 - Back in his late teens and early 20s, he had a job in a drugstore and he worked in construction. While dating a woman whose family owned a sod farm, he briefly entertained a fantasy of someday getting a patch of land and selling patches of land.
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Mary Schmich
Cell phone users: the new drunk drivers - April 3, 2009 - I sent a query on Facebook Thursday asking if anyone out there was brave enough to confess to the crimes of texting or talking on the cell phone while driving.
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Dawn Turner Trice
Historian remembered - March 30, 2009 - John Hope Franklin, the black historian whose towering intellect was matched only by his dedication to his craft, was one of those people whose passing makes me sigh and feel this gut-remorse that I never made the time to call or write to say something like: "Professor Franklin, I've read your stuff, and, well, I love you, man!"
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Mary Umberger
Scammers find unusual new prey: Landlords - March 29, 2009 - Scams never sleep. They don't have to come in the form of offers from a Nigerian prince who's seeking investors. They might seem like a simple inquiry about an apartment rental.
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Ellen Warren
Book 'em! - April 2, 2009 - What's the big hurry, anyway?
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Bob Weber
Motormouth: Putting the heat on A/C efficiency - April 4, 2009 - Q I own a 2000 Chevy Cavalier Z24 with 46,800 miles. It is in great shape, but my husband and I smell gas.
Jon Yates
Ailing teen's wish: A dog park near his home awaits homeowners association OK - April 2, 2009 - His first choice was to meet Ozzy Osbourne, but the aging rock star was out of the country.
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Eric Zorn
By its very controversy, Ayers' visit offered much - March 31, 2009 - Should officials have invited Vietnam-era radical Bill Ayers to speak to a student group at Naperville North High School next month?
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