Culture vultures: The Chicago Tribune (registration required) covers a lecture at Evanston's Comix Revolution about The Simpsons' simultaneous existence in popular culture and counterculture. The discussion was led by Northwestern professor Bill Savage, a contributor to the new book, Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture:

"Can you have something made by an evil multinational conglomerate -- not to put it politely -- and at the same time say something serious about multinational conglomerates and how they've affected our world?"