What is Straight Dope Chicago?
It’s a Chicago version of the Straight Dope, the legendary Q&A column by Cecil Adams. This is not that hard to figure out. Yes, but why Chicago? Why the Straight Dope? Why now? (1) Because Chicago is where we live. (2) The Straight Dope’s job is fighting ignorance. We’ve been whaling away at it mightily for 35 years. However, if you look around Chicago today, you see that considerable ignorance remains. It’s time to open a second front. (3) We agree that, from a macroeconomic standpoint, the timing is not ideal. However, when we see a sign on a store that says, “Established 1933,” we think: Now that took balls. We figure that, by setting up shop now, we’ll throw the competition off the track. No, really. Because our experience with the Straight Dope persuades us it’s the obvious next step. Since opening the Straight Dope Web site in 1999, we’ve attracted an avid online following. Each month nearly 1 million people (“unique visitors,” in trade parlance) read a Straight Dope column via t
