Recently, several GOP presidential candidates have been quite vocal with their opinions on evolution vs. intelligent design. If Rick Perry sees evolution as a theory with "some gaps in it" and Michele Bachmann maintains that there can be "reasonable doubt on both sides" and Ron Paul, as a creationist, simply "doesn't accept" evolution occurred, you may well be curious about how they view other scientific theories and phenomena. Here's a primer we recently uncovered!

Gravity: The force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or the weight pressed upon each of us by a thousand angels sitting on our heads? [...]

Awl pal Claire Zulkey has has a new project: "Even before obesity became the major story that it is I always thought, as I watched news stories featuring some anonymous person walking across the street, "Does that person know he's being filmed? What would he think if he saw himself on TV? How did they set up that shot, did they argue over who best illustrated this story?"

So here it is, Obesity Stock Photos."

Just because an agent approaches you doesn’t mean you have a good book idea. The agent may have heard of you and figures that if you’ve written a million words online, you might be willing to publish 60,000 of them in a book. But the things you wrote might not make sense for a book. While the agent might love you and your voice, she might not be so hot on your other ideas, which can be confusing. Didn’t the other ideas come from you and your voice?

Just because you write most of a book doesn’t mean you can finish and sell a book. Doesn’t it seem like [...]

According to a recent issue of New York Magazine, local artisanal soda pop is the next hot food trend. This is going to make me look "in the know" here in Chicago because, while New York gets our weather remnants, we receive your stale food trends. Remember when cupcakes were all the rage back in the days when "Sex and the City" was a TV show? We just finally got over them (Chicago is one step ahead of food networks, though, as "DC Cupcakes" is now a thing). Currently our city is hot for hamburgers. If you're a culinary trendster then you know the difference between M. Burger, DMK [...]

I started writing TV recaps and reviews a few years ago when a friend of a friend at a major newspaper told me they were expanding their TV coverage and needed people do cover a few shows, so I picked up two programs I already watched a lot, 'The Office' and 'ER.' It sounded easy enough, writing my thoughts on shows I already had opinions on anyway, although it took several tries to get the tone right–sometimes it still does. Some publications want a lot of recap, and some prefer that you assume that the readers saw the show and just touch on the major points. Some editors encourage [...]

I'll never forget the night my mom quit going to musicals: it felt like the first and only time she abandoned the family because, technically, she did. It was 1993 and as a very special treat, just before Christmas, my mom, dad, brother and I went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Donny Osmond at the Chicago Theater. We'd have dinner, see the show and then spend the night downtown. Fancy!