Headphones On

Since I read "The Rise of the Creative Class" a few years ago I've been a believer in Richard Florida's theories of urban planning. Cities like Chicago need to become hubs organized to the benefit it's diverse and creative populations. Our city services (and especially transportation) need to serve to make life easier because without these cities, regional (and then national) economic prospects dwindle and die.

This makes today's editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times by John Norquist on the horrible misstep by our state and city government on regional transit all the more poignant.

We aren't asking for a lot. We want a quality transit system that is reliable and doesn't strand people for hours in the dark after a holiday or on tracks in the 90 degree heat until 16 people are hospitalized. Study after study shows how reliable public transit is an intricate part of any successful city plan so WHY does the state government continue to drag their feet over funding for Chicago's regional transit? The Siemens AG study that was released in May ("Megacity Challenges: A Stakeholder's Perspective.") demonstrates exactly how under-funded our public transit has been over the past few decades compared to systems that serve a similarly sized population:

Paris
Population: 9.2 million
Area: 2600 sq. kilometers
Transit operating funding (2005): $4,986,000,000
Funding per person: $542
Funding per sq. kilometer: $1,917,695

London
Population: 7.6 million
Area: 1600 sq. kilometers
Transit operating funding (2005): $7,804,000,000
Funding per person: $1,027
Funding per sq. kilometer: $4,877,500

Chicago
Population: 9.2 million
Area: 8000 kilometers
Transit operating funding (2005): $1,685,000,000
Funding per person: $183
Funding per sq. kilometer: $210,625¹

This is ridiculous and it's enough to make me consider finally packing up and moving to Brooklyn.

¹ See Sick Transit Chicago for more info.

Buy some: Tahiti 80, Eggstone

Posted by Liz at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Good Luck Senator Obama. I hope you have the will to stand up to all the muck and lies they're going to throw at you. It was a beautiful speech today and I'm proud you're my senator.

You can watch watch the announcement at barackobama.com.

Sidenote: One of the brilliant things the Obama campaign has decided to do is free the media... within minutes after the announcement was final there were creative commons photographs up on their Flickr feed. Really fantastic and well done photos to boot.

Posted by Liz at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was born, baptized and confirmed a Catholic all at my weekly-church-going parents insistence. That said, I can take communion but I think the entire enterprise is bunk.

I sat in my neighborhood's beautiful Catholic church on Sunday morning and went along with the act. I don't sing and I don't pray but I go through the motions for my father's sake. Halfway through the mass, the reader goes up to the podium and lists off atrocities to pray for.

Normally, this is the one part of the mass I can appreciate. As a large group of people pray for starving refugees in Africa I can appreciate the service aspect of religion as a whole. At this particular Easter mass, however, I just found myself getting more and more angry.
The prayer would start out alright...

Let us pray for women around the world that their basic human rights be acknowledged..

and let the Catholic church flourish in their attempts to convert (the heathens of) China to Catholicism.

Um excuse? I have no problem supporting women's rights around the world but what does that have to do with converting Buddhist (or Falun Gong or any other sect of) Chinese people to Catholicism? I will support no such thing. There is enough religious persecution on the Asian continent without actively creating more.

Let us pray for peace around the world...and for the victims of the current war such as Lieutenant Corporal blah blah and Major General blah blah blah...

Whoa. The real victims of war are those who wage it?!? I have NO ISSUE supporting American/British/whatever troops who are deployed in foreign countries. They are not to blame for the war itself even if they are forced to engage in it. I do have an issue saluting ONLY the Americans who are injured and not the exponentially larger group of civilians who lose their lives and livelihoods in America's continual quest for oil.

Over and over the intentions of the prayers would be noble... and then quickly break down into the active hypocrisy that is the Catholic church. It was a beautiful church, a nice enough service but I don't think I can be forced to attend another mass there again, not even for my father's sake.

Posted by Liz at 09:58 AM | Permalink

My mother (the genealogist) has discovered we are related to Barack Obama. His great-great-great-great-great somebody married my great-great-great-great-great somebody in 1776 in New Jersey. Perhaps this will finally be the way I can get her to vote Democratic.

Posted by Liz at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As renewal notices for publications such as The Nation, In These Times, and The Progressive come in the mail, they are immediately dropped into the garbage can. This is not an indication that my affiliations have become any less socially progressive but more that I'm just plain tired. I'm tired of feeling like one of the few people out there that still care about the issues of state supported health care, environmental protection, clean elections, social security protection, civil liberties and other (apparently) socially progressive ideals.

Mostly I'm tired of feeling like these ideals aren't the least bit progressive and are just plain common sense. As the stereotypical "little guy" in America struggles to bring home a paycheck why aren't the ideas of national health care important to him? Can't that "little guy" realize the increase it would bring to his weekly pay? Can't they see how our health care system is spiralling out of control? Can't they realize that the huge amounts they pay for any prescription drugs are damaging to society and not actually healing it?

Continue reading "I've let my political life fall to the wayside" »

Posted by Liz at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Liz at 05:00 PM | Permalink

Number of times Keyes mentioned abortion:
iiiii iiiii i (11)

Number of times Keyes was asked about abortion:
i (1)

Number of times Keyes mentioned god/morals:
iiiii iiiii iiii (14)

Number of times Keyes was asked about religion:
iii (3)

Memorable Quotes:

"The gun control mentality is ruthfully absurd." - Alan Keyes

"I don't call people names, I make arguments." - Alan Keyes

"The question actually illustrates the ignorance I've noticed of your knowledge of the constitution and it's background. " - Alan Keyes (5 minutes after the above quote)

"I do have a little understanding of the constitution since I teach Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago..." - Smartypants Obama :p

"I'm not running to be the minister for Illinois, I'm running to be it's United States Senator." - Barrack

Posted by Liz at 10:19 PM | Permalink

I let October 25 come and go without reflecting on it... but it needs to be done. Paul Wellstone's presence is sorely missed in American politics. The Senate no longer holds the champion of the farmer, the friend of the union workers and the man who engaged so many in politics. Including me.

I do not live, nor have I ever lived, in Minnesota. Regardless of my Illinois residency, Paul Wellstone was my senator. I donated money to his campaigns. I shook his hand. I looked to him for genuine leadership on different issues and bills. I cried when he died and holding back the tears now is still very hard.

Paul wasn't a politician in the traditional sense but more of a teacher and an activist. Beyond all odds the former college professor managed the greatest grassroots campaigns in American political history. The people of Minnesota loved him because he stood up to the bullies (the health care industry, agri-business, the banking industry) and represented THE PEOPLE'S interests. Above all else he served the people who checked his name on the ballot.

I can hear you already saying 'so what... that's what every Senator does!'. Is it?

Our political system is a convoluted system of payoffs only steps above the mafia and concealed wonderfully in terms like 'soft money' and corporate lobbyists. Paul never dealt within the RULES of congress... which is what made me adore him and made him all the more dangerous to the conservative right. He was never afraid to step up and tell the story how it really was. Unlike most senators he didn't owe his political life to corporation/industry X, Y or Z. He owed it to the people and he did his damndest to represent THEIR interests beyond all else.

Don't get me wrong... Illinois has a wonderful senator in Dick Durbin. Senator Durbin has gone steps beyond his former liberal nature to take up some of Wellstone's more progressive ideals since Paul's death. As i watch the administration push every body of our government further right, i don't have those fears of Dick Durbin. His landslide victory to retain his senate seat in 2002 just shows that those around me at least agree on that point.

Despite Senator Durbin's liberal nature, he will never be Paul Wellstone. Paul made the personal political. He understood that the only way to get 'the people' involved was to talk to them about real issues and ways that the government could help. He was a decent and kind man... the very qualities that are so lacking in modern politics where the drive seems to be more about power than social justice.

I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist... I really don't... but can anyone tell me why in over a year they have not been able to determine what happened to Wellstone's plane? Where is the black box? Why wasn't there communication about a problem between the plane and the nearby traffic control tower? Most of all... WHY ISN'T ANYONE TALKING ABOUT THIS?

Posted by Liz at 10:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)