chicagodads

I think that the topic of Roland Burris being appointed to Obama’s old senate seat by on-his-way-out Gov. Blagojevich is timely if not because of the appointment itself, then because of all the hubbalabolla swirling around it.A lot of pundits and people-of-the-street (and I include the inspiration for this, my wife and another friend) are suggesting that Burris - an old also-ran in Illinois politics - is an idiot for accepting Blagojevich’s appointment. They point to the fact that Blag is bad, that he tried to sell the seat to the highest bidder, that members of Congress said they will use their Constitutional powers to overturn that decision and refuse his appointment (whomever that may be), that Burris is a pawn in the game of life, that blah, blah, blah…

To be honest, none of that matters. Blags picked his man before he was indicted. From most accounts, he picked an honorable man, a good politician who’s been unlucky in the polls for the last decade and a half (he lost runs for mayor [of Chicago, of course] and governor since the nineties, but became the first black statewide elected official and was state AG for several terms) who is largely controversy-free and will most likely remain unblemished by any actual wrong-doing or unethical practices here. Also, although I’m no expert on Constitution, law, or anything along those lines, there appears to be no precedent nor any law that would allow for Congress to not seat the new appointee. I think their case would be strong if they could accuse Burris of bribing, extorting, leaning, etc. But if that’s not the case, then they probably shouldn’t - and probably won’t - filibuster.

My perspective is that the Senate is just talking out of its self-righteous arse simply because the media and the public are inflamed about this embarrassment that is Roderick Blagojevich and all his trappings. When the heat dies down, they really won’t care.

It was a shrewd political act of G-Rod; that’s all. It was the same thing that our last ill-fated gov did before ending his term: one good deed (in the case of Head-Convict Ryan, questioning the validity of Illinois’ death penalty system by commuting all death row sentences) to give his name a good rep and allow the possibility that maybe he’s redeemable after all. It doesn’t change facts about Blagojevich, but we shouldn’t crucify an innocent man because of bad associations, but rather by bad actions and decisions.

Chicago, as our very own Tribune has recently pointed out for those who have not traveled through the North, West and South Sides, is one of the most segregated cities in the US. Dr. King knew this and dared shed light on it some forty years ago and got a bottle upside his head for his troubles. Two generations later, things have changed little. If you go through a neighborhood or live in a neighborhood in Chicago where there is a mixture of races, either you’re in one of the few that are genuinely multiracial (as Lincoln Square was when I was growing up. More so and still currently Devon Street, both of which were types of welcome ports to immigrants and where many multiethnic businesses thrive. Hyde Park can also lay claim to that, although socio-economically they are on different ends of the spectrum) or in a neighborhood where one group is moving out while another moves in (which, sadly, is the case in my own current neighborhood of Logan Square and my old neighborhood of Lincoln Square, as well as the old Cabrini Green projects and innumerable places).

If whites are moving in, generally speaking, the rents and property taxes are going up until most non-whites can no longer afford to live there. Usually, these white people would be young professionals, people just out of college and wanting to move closer to the heart of the city. For a while, whites had fled the city (which was called White Flight. The principal difference is that whites left because they wanted to, not because they were genuinely forced out) for the safety and unclutteredness of the suburbs. Then their children went off to college and decided that the ‘burbs were boring and they want to live closer to where the jobs and the action are. Which led them into areas formerly or presently occupied by blacks and latinos (note: for some strange reason, I decided that I’m not going to capitalize racial categories today. I may tomorrow. Also, we tend to say ‘latinos’ in Chicago, rather than ‘hispanics’ or other names).

For instance, one of my friends remembers growing up when the now-asture and immutable Lincoln Park (yes, we like Lincoln around here. Even though he’s a Republican and all) was a Puerto Rican neighborhood. Two generations later, it’s rare to see a Puerto Rican walk around the area, although the reminders are still there.

Now, while more whites are moving into these apparently (and sometimes honestly) blighted communities, others are being forced out of their areas, their communities, their homes, their businesses, their environs, and their schools because they can no longer afford to live, work or operate there any longer. Which is fine by the city government because they figure that they will receive more money and more prestige as more professionals (read: college educated whites) move back to the city and make it home.

Of course, although young whites are moving into the city and changing the landscape of it, they are not staying. As they contemplate raising families (usually about ten years after they graduate university), they see that the price of living in the city is getting astronomically higher, that the streets still are not adequately safe, and that the schools are probably even more dangerous. So, they pull their selves and their little ones out of the city and even many suburban areas (where do you think those displaced black and brown families are living now?) and move to exurbia, in the far reaches of the cornfield galaxy where a Target and Best Buy is sure to land. Along with all the boring comforts of their own boring adolescence.

Well, it’s a good thing that somebody’s speaking for the children of minorities, right? Well, this being America and all, that’s just not the case. Hizzoner Mayor Richard Daley and Sir Secretary Arne Duncan had concocted a plan and set it in motion years ago. This plan is called Renaissance 2010. This plan does not seek to reverse the ouster or poor education of our minority and underserved. It’s chief aim - to view it in its context - is to retain white children in Chicago while making public education cheaper by tearing down the power of the Chicago Teacher’s Union.* Further proving the maxim that No Child Left Behind means that the powers-that-be are merely tossing out the undesirable children so there will be no trace of them.

And Chicago’s at the forefront of this ‘reform.’ Is the entire country going to further displace people of color now?

*FWIW, I am no advocate of the CTU. It is corrupt and inept. But it is protection against two larger and even more corrupt and inept systems, the Chicago Public Schools and the City of Chicago.

First of all, let me just clarify something: Although I still don’t think that Obama’s involved in dirty Chicago politics, he does have A LOT of connections that are connected to others that are. But that’s not really saying anything new as far as politicians are concerned. However, thanks to that big dummy who keeps his governor’s mansion on the North Side, it is big news and loads of speculation. Which is actually a good thing, I think. Everybody keeps talking about what a reformer Daley Jr. is and how good it must be to be in his city and under his care. Hopefully, the shone light will shine bright.

Anyway, of everyone Chicago that is either on the president-elect’s transition team, or been appointed to his cabinet, or both, the one that is most intriguing to me (and hopefully to other fathers) is his choice for Secretary of Education, Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan. Mr. Duncan is an amusing choice, at the very least because his appointment alone disproves the whole “Barack Obama is a socialist” <quote>theory</quote>.  After all, Mr. Duncan’s legacy around these parts is closing down publicly-financed/run/and operated schools and giving them over to educational institutions - some of them explicitly for-profit. But we’ll talk about that later.

In fact, I’m looking at a three-parter here. Tomorrow I wanna talk about some of the history and context around these ‘changes’ that Mssrs. Daley (the real head of the CPS) and Duncan have orchestrated and in what direction these changes seem to want to take the city’s direction.

(other posts in this series can be read here , there , yep , this way and that )

We’re spending Christmas in Branson, MO this year with extended family. Which is always good for several laughs and many, many stories. And if and when I can get my head wrapped right around my story-telling abilities I may share some of these stories. But, as it is, the baby has not gotten her share of sleep this week (starting with the first day where she slept for half the time she normally would and up to and after opening presents Christmas morning, where she screamed several times in front of all gathered for this momentous occasion).

Also, I do most of my thinking on the computer or another location that I like to think of as my solitary-confinement-and-intelligence-gathering area (occasionally those two locations merge), but neither are as readily available to me down here. So, some of my more vivid memories may be recalled and released to the loving, anticipating, and frankly rabid fanbase over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I will say that I love being with my family. And so does my baby - maybe a little too much, in fact. So much so that Thursday afternoon is the first time since Saturday evening that I’ve been able to get on the internets. [Of course, I may lose points if I disclose that Thursday is Christmas day, right? Oh well, it’s the first chance that I’ve gotten to get away from the baby and other responsibilities long enough to travel down to the one place in our time-share  that has internet connection.]

Time-shares are an intriguing concept. I would’ve never have thought they to be as intriguing as they are. At least not based on the high-pressure sales people and their high-pressure sales tactics.

About one week ago, I’ve been sipping a cold beer in my warm apartment, stuffing envelopes and catching up on old and new friends through the glories of the internets on my own personal laptop computer. There is a beautiful woman who agreed to marry me sleeping soundly in the room to my left. The room to my right is holding our wonder-magnet of a daughter - tipping the scales of cuteness, even for a toddler. We are all well-fed. I, for one, am a little too well-fed.

As stated earlier, by the time you read this, I expect that we’ll be hundreds of miles away. We flee from nothing; we are not evacuated nor exiled. We do not go looking for green pastures or food or refuge. We go willingly, because we want to meet our family and be together in another heated apartment (or three, to be more precise). We are driving down there in a car that is not our own, because we pay somebody for the right to borrow their car.

And our Christmas will have few gifts. Not because, obviously, we cannot afford to buy and give gifts. We do have money, and more importantly, we have lines of credit. Part of the reason we are dramatically cutting back on gift-giving this year is both pragmatic and purposeful: we don’t think it wise to go further into debt to buy things that won’t last and really don’t matter. And I’m good with that. But also, there’s another aspect that I’m just thinking about: We all have what we need. I mean, I could use new shoes. If someone got me a new pair of jeans or some boots (or boots for the baby or the mama) that would be appreciated. But, really, we are all capable of providing, we all have plenty. And then some.

Do I feel guilty about that? Honestly…

Sometimes.

But I realize that we have resources in order to share and to share freely - with and for all, not just with those I agree with or like. And, I believe, as much as we do share we are doing good, we are actively spreading love. I may not directly affect children lost or trapped in Rhodesia or North Korea or the Congo or San Francisco or Brazil or Lower Wacker Drive or Darfur. But hopefully my family will influence people to make all aspects of the world a better place.

Merry Christmas - to those that celebrate it.

Our economy is changing. That, of course happens every generation or so. I grew up in a service econ; my parents in a manufacturing econ; my daughter, supposedly, in a knowledge econ. Nobody knows whether or not that is true. The “information superhighway” was to come to fruition a decade ago. But that bubble, as they say, has burst.

I’m at the laundromat right now (Saturday night), wishing I didn’t have to spend money before I spend more money traveling across the states. On the “idiot box” is a truly inane movie called “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” It’s a unqualfyingly bad Disney movie about a young college student (I think?) who is bribed by his dad to come home for the holidays. Families, apparently, don’t even work without greed.

And that’s the problem with our financial system. It’s not so how the economy manifests itself in each twenty year seaon, but in what these ‘economies’ are based on. For the last fifty-to-sixty years the underlying factor in the way we make and share money has been through massive unrelenting consumption. We work for the manufacturers, they give us a certain amount of money, we buy their goods, we can’t afford to keep buying their goods with the money they give us, so we build a line of credit so that we can continue to buy what we don’t really need in the first place. It all doesn’t add up.

What makes me (and I suppose a lot of people) fearful is that things can’t and won’t last like this for long. The transition that we have to undergo is in some ways easy - change our habits: buy less; pay off our creditors. But then changing those habits would mean less stuff bought and therefore, less money to pay wages. Our entire economic system is so tied-in to these habits that being healthy means more people will be laid off quicker. But if we don’t change our habits, the ultimate price may be delayed, but it will be much, much larger and explosive. And a legacy of debt is not how our children should remember us.

So, yeah, Merry Christmas.

Part 1 is here .

Part 6 is here .

Today’s caveat lector:  The other four parts are scattered somewhere between those two.

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Our heroes in this movie [the never-produced sequel to Jingle All the Way, Jingle All the Way 2: Again!] would be wise enough to delicately hold on to their toys until the end of Christmas break, understanding that a status symbol is only as cool as those who understand its place. So they bring it to show-and-tell on the first day of school. Therefore, they have found a use more satisfying than mere transitory happiness. Its intended use has extended to social-standing, to place our heroines at the head of the social pack and pecking order (to mix animal metaphors) and that would possibly last him, her or them for about ten minutes at school before their next swirlie. At which case, it would be “Back to the dregs for you, Mister.” In which case the fathers would look on and knowingly and wisely nod their heads in approval. We understand that falling victim to bullying is a rite of passage. A completely unnecessary, barbaric, psychologically damaging rite of passage, but if we had to go through it, they should too.

If, however, this movie was produced by Michael Bay, we can at least expect our heroines to go down with a few nifty explosions.

My family, for the life of me I know not why - has largely decided to leave the comfy confines of Chicago, IL for the mildly warmer climate of Miami, Oklahoma. And since they’re the older members of my family (like my grandparents and parents) and since my parents can’t drive and are functionally poor, out of deference for their age, we tend to travel there more often than they travel here.

Except that my wife and I haven’t traveled down there since we’ve been married. That’s largely because we don’t have a car but also because either one of us in our immediate family has been pregnant or a little baby during most of those two years. But, we’re running out of excuses. And my child hasn’t seen her paternal grandparents in well over a year, and never seen or been held by my father.

Now, here’s the interesting (to me, at least) part: We’re staying in time-shares in Branson. Not knocking it at all. It’s beautiful in the Ozarks by there and living next to Cornfields, USA,  but in Big Ol’ Bad City, USA, it’ll be nice for a change of scenery. And, there’s room for my large family. And it’s functionally free.

The only real question is what we’ll be doing down there. I’m beginning to suspect that not only are the shows cheesy (I AM aware of that) but they may also be really expensive (for my tastes, at least) and may not be open during Christmas week. My only hope is that Yakov Smirnoff will listen to my pleas and have a pre-Christmas show for my entire family at an affordable rate. Only in Amedika! I Love Dis Count-key! Please, pray with me on this one.

I hope to amass enough stories, notes of interest, etc. to keep the loyal and massive ChicagoDad fanbase appeased while I go on vacation starting tomorrow night. Today we are having family over for a preemptive Christmas and we’ll have more family over for a posthumous Christmas shortly after we return. So, I’m trying to get a head start. Not that I’ll get all that much accomplished.

Presently, I wonder what we’re going to have with our ham (spiral, this time. I’m too lazy to make 5 whole hams in just over a month. No one should be asked to do that. Ever) and maybe some bacon. Wife’s gonna make her mashed potatoes on both occasions again, which means I’ll need to get plenty of butter and milk to ease ‘em down. The side of the family that’s coming today loves Iron Mike Ditka’s pulled-pork nachos. Should I try to make some bacon nachos? It’s not traditional, but we have enough old school stuff (forgot the figgie pudding, though) to make it work; that is, if it does work.

One more part to air, I believe, on Monday. Today’s caveat lector: Objects in mirror are disjointed because you’re in a fun house.

The never-released sequel is about how the children thought that the toy would bring them happiness and / or security, but how ultimately that could never last. How they found that those who picked on them before continue to pick on them now. Jingle All the Way 2: The Next Generation was supposed to be an examination of the toy’s two hour limit before it died either from self-destruction (which is embedded in all crap), toy-battery-malaise (wherein parents put aside the toy after the D’s have died – usually within the early morning hours – hoping and praying that their children would never notice that their own parents cannot afford the price of batteries), or from negligent use by the children (which, DUH!, happens). Most children’s toys do not make it out of Christmas alive. Christmas is their very own D-Day.

And so we continue our continuing saga. Today’s caveat lector: Shhh. It’s a secret.

 The film as a whole raises big, thematic questions in conjunction with how we raise our children and why, sometimes, some of us think it better to have at least one parent always present at home (even if it is the grown male) than both raking in the monies. I would ask anyone willing to listen: Was it worth it, parents? Couldn’t we have better spent that time with our children? Or did we just want another excuse to hunt, to dream big unattainable dreams, to believe that our money and therefore our lifestyles and jobs mattered. I am not saying that they do not. There are many who could – and probably should – do both. There are many parents who do not work and yet are still aloof from their children, of course. But do we look forward to being home? Are our children our very prizes, or are we using possessions to fill in the gaps where we fail? The sense that I get is that we sacrifice our relationships with our children for what we believe that they want. Just like Arnold Shwarzenegger as Harold Langston does in Jingle All the Way.

Via my blogging friend Micah comes this tale of an underdog father and mother suing the big grocery chain because they believe that their oldest child has been discriminated against on the eve of his third birthday. It is a sad story being in that the child is just a victim of his parents utter mental retardation and society’s reluctance to remove he and his kin from his dumb-dumb destructive parents.

I do not say this lightly. I am not in favor of normalizing families. I know of Christians who are raising their children in hostile environs across the globe and Muslims who are trying to do the same here. But most seem to be aware of what the sacrifices are and seem to be willing to minimize the cost on their children. The brunt of their decisions lay on them, not their offspring and certainly not immediately. But New Jersey couple Heath and Deborah Campbell don’t seem to be aware that giving such names as Adolph Hitler and JoyceLynn Aryan Nation to their children would have massive social and emotional tolls on their kids.

Having said all that, though, I do not think it would be in the best interests of society for the government to intervene and take the children away at this stage - maybe for their dangerous actions, but not specifically for their views. That may set an ugly precedent in this country that I think few but the most ardent fascists would want to see. However, it does rest on the local communities to act out in bold and loving ways to reach-out to this family. This may seem counter-intuitive, but nothing beats exclusitivity like inclusion. What better way to teach these children to love all people regardless of race than to have people of all races love these children?

We continue our continuing saga. Today’s caveat lector: If you read the articles out of order, you may feel a little woozy.

 The theme of JAW seems to be that we cannot acquire that which we most desire.  And what we most desire is happiness. Happiness is fleeting. Or, to make that a more powerful sentence: happiness fleets. It cannot and will not last. Security – this idea that he can continue doing what he is doing, that the power, influence and money that have worked for him previously will continue to work to protect his assets – is an illusion. It did not protect him from the traffic ticket, nor from his hilarity-ensuing evening . Jingle All the Way is the best example of a pseudo-Buddhist post-9/11 film entirely manufactured before 9/11.

While nearly every part of Jingle All the Way resonates very deeply within my soul and funny-bone, what most strikes me as Truth with a capital T and then a smaller ‘r’, ‘u’, and ‘e’ is the eternal and inner struggle, the good fight fought on the wrong battlefield – buying crap.

What makes it so universally ready-made for the psyche of the American dad is that we all know that buying crap just makes us feel like further crap. We know that we have not added anything of actual value into the world, certainly not for our children. All we may have done is leave them a bigger and brighter debt. But we do it under the pretense that both our children and we will love this useless junk. And maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but we’ve spent a good twelfth of our adult existence chasing expensive windmills in the sacred halls of Costco while fighting off price-zombies and Wal-mart monkeys every step of the way. Was it worth it? 

Part I can be read here.

Ahhh, Jingle All the Way: a true-to-life movie about a massive and extremely successful businessman and father whose Christmas Season officially begins when he is pulled over for driving on the interstate shoulder in a historically futile effort to beat rush hour traffic. This suburban, SUV-driving, car-phone chattering megalomaniac’s fortunes fall back on him when he decides that that he must absolutely buy some wildly popular, quickly-disappearing, obnoxious, ubiquitous and soon-to-be-obsolete toy in order to win the heart of his distant child or children. Hi-jinks, to our rapturously-attentive eyeballs’ meaty pleasure, ensue when he tags along with Sinbad as co-fighting pilgrims, struggling to find the last remaining copies of this conspicuously missing action figure grail. It is, so Sinbad and Conan believe, the Road to Eternal Paternity, on par to a road-buddy trip with Hope and Crosby, Lewis and Martin, Jesus and Saul of Tarsus, or the Wonder Twins and Aquaman.

Those words I heard as I was hauling myself and my seventeen month old daughter off the bus. We were on our way to a birthday party for a one year old boy named Samuel and a man had entered the bus and struck up a conversation with us. Of course, this being Chicago on a Saturday leading up to Christmas, a lot of people got on and off the bus during our three-mile tour. But the little observant lady found no one willing to make eye contact with her or address her on the bus until late in the journey when this man did. By then, we were getting close to our destination and the bus was getting closer to its final destination.

I appreciate public transportation for a lot of reasons. Obviously, a large segment of the population (us included) can’t afford to have/keep a car, congestion of a massive group of people trying to get to a few spaces in a very time-specific manner in separate vehicles would destroy our infrastructure and cause everyone to be late, wastes preportionately less gas, etc., etc. But it also forces us to face the cold, hard reality of a shared space. That shared space rarely turns into something that I (nor any sane person) would call community, but at least we become aware that we are not alone nor left to our own devices (well, except for that jerk on Western Ave who thought that somehow me sitting down on the bench next to him on a CROWDED bus would give him a right to voice his Euro-trash homophobia as if I somehow offended him). So, every once in a while, it’s good for a hardened Chicagoan like myself to run into another Chicagoan who is cool with just striking up a convo about kids on the bus. Every once in a while, it’s nice to lower the old guard down.

And, I must admit, there was a bit of pride in me when we walked out into the December rain and I realized that it was another man - who had entered the bus within the last two minutes and sat next to Joss, who she had also looked up to as if to strike her own muted conversation - that said something to the first guy about me and my daughter. I could practically feel him point with a bit of pride himself at the odd sight of a full-grown man holding preciously to his pint-sized princess. “That’s something you don’t see every day.” Being here all my life, seeing so many fathers abandon their children, knowing so many of the children who were abandoned, I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I felt extra good about my special relationship with my special baby.

It wasn’t until now that I realized that these brief encounters in these shared spaces could also be described so succinctly and warmly.

If you’re wondering why a guy who calls himself (well, here, at least) ChicagoDad has not posted on the Blago-shnuck-up, I can only answer 1) that I did, but just not here - check out my other blog @ leftcheek.blogspot.com for some hot facebook-on-facebook status updates (as well, I am working on a tributary News of the Weird in his honor); and 2) sorry, had more local fish to fry.

To be honest, if I had to choose between the little, local, barely covered scene where the little guy is getting trampled and the larger, state/national, media-blitzed circus where the big guy is getting skewered, why I would choose whatever’s easiest to cover. In this case, however, we happened to be among the little guys getting screwed by the big bucks.

And we lost. Well, at least round one. Most of us did not expect to get a fair hearing. Even if we were excellently and adequately prepared with many people behind us - and far from it on all those accounts - we still probably would have lost on the alderman’s home turf. As it was, we had about four people (including my wife) testify against the neighborhood plan as it stood versus maybe as many as twenty stand unified in support of it.

Unfortunately, having less than a week to mobilize an entire neighborhood (much of which was either completely ignorant of the plan, intimidated by certain powers-that-be, or may even be kowed to the powers of hopelessness) meant that the best we could do at this point is to gather up a few signatures and inform the affected businesses that we would try to fight for them and for the neighborhood’s current residents and then go downtown and try to do so.

I’m really proud of my wife. She did the best she could. She’s rather beat right now, but she put up a hell of a fight. Which is good, because we have many smaller fights to fight and we just got the ball rolling. I think they’re gonna look back at this and see that we had just begun, whereas now they think that maybe we’ll just cave in and let them (specifically developers and architects, outside contracting firms, elected and appointed leaders, all) rule over us (residents of Logan Square - especially those of us near the Milwaukee Corridor).

I would specify more - and probably use less distracting sentence structures - but I just wanted to get that off my chest for now. The fight continues. We will continue to speak up for the living rights of those who do not have, so that we may all have.

There’s more to say on the neighborhood fiasco, and I’ll get around to it either here and/or on my other blog, but for now… Stay at home daddy time:

What you have to understand about us men is that we look up to role models to tell us how we should live our lives. What you should understand about us males who are treading new waters and pioneering places unknown to our gender is that we’re kind of picky about our models.

I feel we’ve been pandered to in the action-adventure niche. That is, if we had been addressed at all. In fact, I can only think of one movie that centers around a father motivated by the well-being of his children and is willing to risk life, limb, injury and lots and lots of money for his child. That would-be parentsploitation film is, of course, Jingle All the Way. Sure there were other movies about parents being motivated by their kids and whatnot – such as Ransom – but they S-U-Ked.

Update and clarification.

My personality does not allow me to tolerate fighting. Not to say I do not become enraged or even bitter. But I’m not much of a fighter. So, to see my lovely wife take on the powers that be largely out of guts, determination, skill (which she has in spades, my friends), and a passion for the marginalized/displaced meant that I had to be involved too. Not that I regret it, it’s just that I tend to be a little more calculating (which is my way of saying, “I’ll make snide remarks from the sidelines rather than actually investing in or risking anything, thank you very much!”). All of that to say, I’ve got a headache today, and I never once pounded the pavement or met with the alderman or rounded up signatures or spoke to anyone in Spanish about this proposal.

But enough about me.

I’m proud of my wife for the reasons above. But I’m also proud of her for going to the alderman’s office twice to ask him to delay sending it through City Hall until necessary, reasonable, and safe modifications can be made. Today my wife and her partner-in-crime made their argument that most residents in the target area (according to the study itself) have only a high school education (if that) and a large segment rely on some form of public assistance, but none of the “community representatives” who helped to fashion the plan were in those demographics; they argued that businesses that are already in the study area were not considered because they did not fit a certain social idea (for example, there is a very popular Cuban coffee shop across the alley from us, but neither it nor the two Dunkin’ Donuts nearby were considered as coffee houses; there’s a Currency Exchange that is considered a financial institution to many in the community, but not to the authors of the plan; and so on); they argued that the plan should be translated into Spanish and even offered to help with that; and they suggested that there should be safeguards set in place not to alter the entire plan, but to protect those already in the community from massive and unfair jettisoning (I’m guessing that that is a word, since my spell-check didn’t even underline it).

Did it work? We’re not sure yet. But we can rest knowing that the presentation was laid out clearly. We should receive an answer by tomorrow (Wednesday). In the meantime, continue to pray and do send out an occasional call (773-278-0101) or email (ward01@cityofchicago.org) if you can and ask for these safeguards for the Milwaukee Corridor. We need to keep storefront and living spaces affordable enough for the average person who currently runs a business or resides here as well.

I should also mention that we are, for the most part, in need of many of the changes that the Milwaukee Corridor plan would provide. But we are always weary around (1) greedy developers and (2) people who talk about considering the poor and minorities but neither listen to nor involve them into the process.

My wife and a couple community activists went to try to talk the alderman down from his plans. I have a feeling that we are not considered his vested interests. But having a couple rolls full of signatures did help to get his ear, however. Which I find odd…

If people don’t speak now, he can get away with what he wants. He can say that he was working for the best of the community and doing what the community wants (after all, as these developers are buying up huge plots of land, they are now of course members of the community…); he can say that the time was now or never, that the community was made aware through “public” displays in newspapers (which, conveniently, nobody reads anymore).

And, of course, he would have a point… But what really bothers me is how people feel intimidated to not stand up and be counted against the wishes of the powerful in this city. And anybody who knows this city (”that works”) knows what I mean. I’m not shaming the intimidated.  They have every reason to be afraid. The kind of things that our politically-connected put their opposition through when they don’t get their way is straight up out of the old movies. Surly men twirling their mustaches and tying down damsels to train tracks have nothing on these guys. The developers make an offer you can’t refuse; if you refuse, they send Three-finger Louie and My-Cousin-the-Building-Inspector-Vito over to “inspect” your property. Before you know it, you’re up to your grimy little fingertips in ridiculous and hefty fines. They strapped on the concrete shoes, are you ready to swim with the fishies?

All is not lost, however. We just elected our first non-white president, our first black president, our first community-activist president. Can I get a “Yes We Can”?

We still need support. We still need prayer. We still need phone calls to the alderman’s office (773-278-0101 or email them at ward01@cityofchicago.org). And we just may need your bodies downtown on Thursday afternoon.