On water stains...

Has my hometown gone crazy? For about the last 2 weeks, hundreds of Chicagoans have gathered at the Fullerton underpass beneath the Kennedy Expressway to pray before a water stain. A water stain that true believers insist resembles the Virgin Mary. It has been dubbed by some in the media as Our Lady of the Underpass.

I think it looks like a pretty typical water stain. There's a crack in the wall. Water seeps through and flows down the face of the wall, spreading out slightly as it does so. And coincidentally, this typical form is pretty similar to the outline of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There's an interesting quirk about the way our brains are wired that makes it possible for someone to look at a water stain and recognize a human form in it. We humans are pretty darn good at recognizing patterns. So good, in fact, we find patterns where none exist; when we look at the moon, we see a face in its pattern of craters. And it doesn't even look all that much like a face. The phenomenon is known as pareidolia.

If the paper tells you you're a mob boss...

...check it out.

The Chicago Tribune had a rough week. The big headline to start the week was the crackdown on organized crime, and the Trib published photographs of the indicted. Just one problem. One of the photos was of the wrong guy, someone named Frank Calabrese -- who happened to have the same name as a mob boss. Oops. A correction ran the next day (April 27) in an article on the front page of the Metro section.

Ironically, in that same April 27 issue, a photo was published of a guy riding a bicycle, who was identifed as another organized crime figure named Joseph Lombardo. It couldn't be another case of mistaken identity, could it?

Yes, it could. Man in photo: not Lombardo. A correction ran the following day.

Affordable housing in the 48th Ward

Gentrification has arrived in the Edgewater neighborhood in Chicago, and as housing prices have shot skyward in neighborhoods to the south, the demand for condos in Edgewater has been accelerating. Everywhere, it seems, there are dumpsters in front yards signifying yet another condo conversion.

This evening the Organization of the Northeast (ONE) met with 48th Ward Alderman Mary Ann Smith to discuss the loss of affordable housing. Unfortunately, I was late and arrived just as the meeting was wrapping up. But afterward one of the speakers, Mimi Harris, gave me a copy of her notes. Here are excerpts from her statement to the alderman:

Mary Ann, if you cannot sign on to the [citywide] ordinance right now, here's another option. How about balancing the development in your own ward? Other aldermen [in neighboring wards] are doing this: Schulter [47th], Moore [49th], Shiller [46th], Tunney [44th], and even Vi Daley in Lincoln Park [43rd].

Edgewater development is moving ... fast, and Broadway is the newest hotspot. A couple of years ago, in a smaller meeting with [Organization of the Northeast] in your office, you suggested that Broadway would be a good place for some affordable housing development. We see no evidence of this in what is already coming down the pike: Catalpa Gardens [formerly Reza Towers], the [vacant] Piser [funeral home] plans, the Zengeler readaptive development, or the Pasteur development.

We are asking ... that ... [in the 48th Ward] you commit to setting aside 15% of each development larger than 10 units for affordable housing. We don't want to lose any more of our friends or neighbors, nor do we want to be pushed out ourselves from our beloved Edgewater.

The alderman agreed to support the suggested ward-wide set aside policy, and she committed to a followup discussion with ONE on preserving subsidized and rental housing.

Chad Gadya

No, this isn't an essay about some guy named Chad. Chad Gadya (pronounced Had Gadya with a gutteral 'h' and rhymes with "Mod Squad, ha!") is a song sung at Passover at the end of the Seder. In Aramaic (Hebraic dialect). Which I think is pretty cool.

It's an odd song. Kind of like a drinking song, which I guess is appropriate for the end of a meal where everyone is supposed to drink four glasses of wine. The song tells a story that goes like this:

My father bought a kid goat for two zuzim (apparently a monetary unit in ancient Babylon). But the goat was eaten by a cat. Then the cat was bitten by a dog, the dog was beaten by a stick, the stick was burned by a fire, the fire was put out by water, the water was drunk by an ox, the ox was slaughtered by a butcher, and so on...

Aramaic and Hebrew are closely related, so I can understand a fair amount just from my knowledge of Hebrew. For instance, in Hebrew, dog = kelev; in Aramaic, dog = chalba. Both use the same root: KLB. Some words aren't anything alike... In Hebrew, cat = chatul; in Aramaic, cat = shunra. I was disappointed to learn that shunra is interpreted as a pun on the Aramaic phrase soneh rah, which means "one who is evil and hates." Hey, just because the tabby was hungry for a little goat doesn't make her evil!

I don't know if there's any rhyme or reason for this posting. Maybe it's that I just had four glasses of wine, and I'm a lightweight. My apologies to the reader, and in the future, I'll try and blog while sober.

Bush: Chicago's Native Son?

I am a very infrequent diarist over at DailyKos. I don't know what came over me, but today I posted a diary.

The subject wasn't anything terribly momentous, just a morsel of irony I found in today's Chicago Tribune. I decided to post at DailyKos and not here for two reasons. First, the audience there is likely to be hundreds of times larger there in the 30 minutes the diary is visible in the recent diaries list than it will ever be on my humble blog. Second, while I try to keep the writing here interesting, I'm basically writing for myself, and so any discernible quantity of snark on this page just seems superfluous.

Anyway, I've changed my mind; I'm cross posting the thing here after all. (Link to the original here.) The diary reads as follows:

Today's Chicago Tribune reported that President Bush gave a Chicago P.O. box as his address on this year's tax return.  Maybe someday I'll head down to the post office and make a pilgrimage to his "home".  Or maybe I'll just buy some stamps.  The post office is located, appropriately enough, where the Eisenhower Expressway meets Congress Parkway.  And on the map, it's a few blocks to the right of both Clinton and Jefferson.

Some excerpts from the Tribune article:

Home is where the money is when it comes time for President Bush to file his taxes.

Home is not the White House, and home is not the range of his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

Home is Chicago.

Post Office Box 803968, Chicago, IL 60680, that is--according to the 2004 federal income tax return that Bush filed this spring, just like returns the president has filed every year since his election.

...

Sticklers for detail might notice that instructions for Internal Revenue Service Form 1040 explain how taxpayers should list their addresses.

"If you have a P.O. Box, see Page 16," the 1040 form advises. Page 16 is pretty clear: "Enter your box number only if your post office does not deliver mail to your home."

Yet the IRS maintains the president's papers are in order. And a spokesman for Northern Trust offers a standard response for questions about its clients, including the president: No comment.

Bush's legal residence is in Texas, which has no state income tax. He pays no state taxes in Illinois because he doesn't live in the state.

Yes sir... that Bush is a real man of the people, a real authentic guy.  You know,  the kind of guy who lives on a real ranch without any real cattle.  For a native son, Bush did surprisingly poorly in the 2004 election.  He lost every single ward in Chicago, and Chicagoans preferred Kerry by an 82-18 margin.

NewsHour to cover Senn (and other news)

The other night, I attended a meeting of the Save Senn coalition, a group of Edgewater community members opposed to the military academy. The issue, I find out, is starting to attract some attention in the media -- and it's about time! I hear The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, in early May, is planning to do a story about the militarization of America's youth. They are interested in what is happening at Senn, and they might even give Senn its own story, featuring some members of the Save Senn coalition.

One other issue that came up in the meeting... Last fall, when Save Senn first organized, they created a web site. I won't even link to it here, because it's not a very good one, and it hasn't been updated at all this year. Since a site with incomplete or incorrect information is worse than no web site at all, it was decided that it will be taken down. The coalition hopes to replace it with a new and improved site. Some potential resources have been identified for developing a site, but if those fall through, Save Senn will be looking for a web developer willing to work for pizza crusts or less.

On a related topic, I will give some credit to the Chicago Tribune for their article last Sunday about Section 9528 of NCLB. People are starting to learn more about the opt out provision, and there is even legislation pending in the US House that would amend NCLB so that the military would not be given access to students' information without their permission.

Senn update: Arne Duncan responds

(An update on the Senn Naval Academy, slated to open this fall in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago.)

I shouldn't be blogging at such a late hour, but I want to make sure I get this down...

The Senn Tomorrow Task Force, at its February 28 meeting, voted 14-2 to send a letter to Arne Duncan requesting that a moratorium be put in place on the Fall 2005 opening of the naval academy at Senn. The letter was sent following approval at the March 14 meeting, and yesterday, we got a reply. Here are excerpts from the April 18 letter from Arne Duncan to the Senn Tomorrow Task Force:

I am writing in response to your letter concerning the Senn Tomorrow Task Force's ... vote to request a moratorium on the Fall 2005 opening of the naval academy at Senn... I appreciate your committee's efforts on behalf of Senn High School; however, I cannot honor your committee's request.

Before the proposal to open the naval academy was approved by the Chicago Board of Education ... at the Board meeting held on December 15, 2004, CPS conducted an extensive analysis of the proposal and held eight meetings with various constituent groups... These meetings included Senn staff, Senn students, individual community residents, block club leaders, and representatives and members of the Organization of the Northeast and the Edgewater Community Council in addition to many other organizations in Edgewater...

At the public hearing, many people did attend to voice concerns about the naval academy proposal, but it is also important to not that many people also came to voice strong support fot the naval academy specifically and for new educational options for the community generally.

Our letter to Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan was the first substantive recommendation the task force made to him, and he showed his appreciation by summarily REJECTING it. This raises the question: What is the point of Senn Tomorrow?

But if the rejection weren't bad enough, the letter isn't even factually correct. Although Duncan's response states that the Board vote was in mid December, the academy was basically a done deal by early fall. And the decisions were made without any community process to speak of. Most egregiously, the Local School Council (LSC) was not included. After the plans were revealed in October, Senn's LSC board voted unanimously against the naval academy. The LSC should have had authority on the matter, but their vote was ignored by the Board of Education.

As for the sentiment at the public hearing, it was overwhelmingly against the naval academy. This academy is being foisted upon a community that does not want it. So thanks for listening, Mr. Duncan.

Broadway: 5300 block

More on the Broadway survey. Here is the 5300 block:

West side of street:
5300-34 is a modern shopping center, one story tall. It is anchored at the south end by a Blockbuster Video, which has a 2-story facade. Other businesses include: a home furnishings store, a medical professional office, a pay day loan office, an appliance rental, a cell phone store, an electronics store, and a fast food franchise. One storefront is vacant. A parking lot extends from 5308 to 5334, with curb cuts at either end.
5336-46 is a single story bank with drive thru. Curb cuts are at 5336 and 5346.
5348-50 is an older 3-story building. The first floor is occupied by a Colombian restaurant.
5352 is a two-story building with a modern, windowless mansard roof. It is vacant. And ugly.
5354-58 is an older, two-story building that wraps around to the 1200 block of W. Balmoral. The building contains a real estate office, a retail pet supply store, and an insurance office.

East side of street:
5301-49 is a large supermarket/pharmacy and parking lot. It actually faces the 1100 block of W. Berwyn. The parking lot extends from 5301 to 5319. The structure is approximately 25 feet in height.
5351-53 is a small, single-story Chinese grocery and parking lot.
5355-59 is an older, single-story building that wraps around to the 1100 block of W. Balmoral. The entire building is vacant and poorly maintained.

Broadway: 5200 block

This is the first installment of what I hope will be a series of Broadway survey postings. I imagine this will have a limited audience. But then, what else is new? Briefly, this is what we have on the 5200 block of Broadway:

West side of street:
5200-04 is a vintage 3-story building, currently vacant. Until recently, there was a carpet store and a tacqueria on the first floor.
5208-16 is a 2-story building that used to be a Jewish funeral home until it closed 3 years ago. It now sits vacant.
5218-46 is the parking lot for the defunct funeral home. A single story garage for the hearses is at approximately 5224.
5248-56 is a vintage 3-story building. The first story contains a non-profit business, an independent office supply store, and a restaurant. The upper floors appear to be occupied by the Vietnamese Association of Illinois.

East side of street:
5201-5219: A small, single-story grocery, with parking lot, is situated at the corner of Foster and Broadway. It actually faces the 1100 block of Foster.
5221-23 is a single-story medical professional building.
5225-55 (excluding 5237) is a single-story shopping mall with a parking lot. Curb cuts are at approximately 5231. The shopping center contains an auto supply, a dollar store, a coin laundry, a dry cleaner, and a branch bank. The building is 2 stories tall, but has no second story.
5237 is a separate single-story building on the corner that wraps to 1125-33 W. Berwyn. It contains a restaurant, a barber shop, and a shoe store.

Metapost: Latest changes to the site

Last week an old friend of mine was interviewed on C-SPAN (transcript here). Um, maybe I should clarify: he's not old; he's just someone I used to know and haven't seen in years. Today, he runs a very popular blog, and this was the subject of the interview.

In the interview, Markos had this to say:

A lot of the blogging tools ... have templates – I mean, the idea of a blog is to make it so that anybody with no technical skills can publish online... Part of that process is having a design for the Web site. Most people don’t know how to design a Web site, wouldn’t know where to begin. So, Movable Type and Blogger both have templates that you can choose from to build your site with.

The problem is, when you have hundreds of bloggers using the same template it’s hard to really differentiate yourself from the crowd. From the beginning I designed an entirely different [site]... I mean, it’s an orange site... [It's] not the most attractive site. But if you visit [it]... and see something you like, you’re going to remember.

I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to a blog [and] thought, oh, this is pretty good stuff. And then two hours later I have no idea where that site is, because it looked like every other site and I can’t tell them apart.

I guess don't have to be embarrassed to admit, since it is so plain to see, that I use a standard template. I think I have the skills necessary to design a site; I just don't have the time to do the things I'd need to do to differentiate my blog from the hundreds of others that also use the "dots dark" template.

One small thing I did recently was to change the font for the blog title. It used to be Arial/Helvetica, left justified in the left-hand column. The typeface always looked odd to me, especially since the rest of the text is in the Verdana typeface -- a different sans-serif font. So I changed the font to Courier New, made it bigger so that each word gets its own line, and centered the text in the column. Watch out... this blogger is living life on the edge!

Comcast's DNS problems

Normally, I have trouble updating my blog because I don't have enough time. Thanks to Comcast, this week I had a different reason.

Off and on for the last seven days or so, Comcast has been experiencing "service outages" where their network's DNS servers fail to serve up IP addresses. So I try to check my e-mail at mail.comcast.net... and the name can't be resolved to an IP address. No e-mail for you! I try navigating to the blogger.com site... again, the IP address for blogger.com can't be resolved.

Like I said, the outages have been occurring for a whole week. That's one quarter of a billing cycle. Hey, Comcast -- I'm not paying for your service so I can see my web browser report: "Host unreachable."

Disinvestment in the Chicago Public Schools

I opened the Tribune this evening to find the following as today's lead story:

City schools brace for cuts: 800 teaching jobs, programs targeted

Facing a $175 million deficit next year, Chicago schools expect to slash an estimated 800 teaching jobs, cuts that could save the district about $50 million but force most of the system's schools to raise class size and trim programs.

Great. As if teacher morale weren't low enough already. Due to low pay, lack of resources, and poor administration, most Chicago Public Schools (CPS) teachers are only willing to stay in the system a few years before moving on to greener pastures. Now CPS will be even more underfunded.

The vast majority of CPS students are from poor households and therefore have special needs that, if not satisfied by school programs, will hinder their ability to learn. But for some reason, the poor kids get the shaft. They get large class sizes. Bathrooms without working toilets. Leaky roofs. And then the government has the audacity to say their school is "failing."

Right. Failing for lack of investment.

Broadway survey: update

On April 4th I blogged about doing a survey of Broadway in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. Coincindentally, the very next day, I got an e-mail from one of the EBNA board members calling on Edgewater residents to do just that. To quote the e-mail:

We need volunteers to survey our blocks, building to building so we have an inventory of exactly what is there. It will not be a big job if we divide it up. It's spring and nice to be out and about, so please VOLUNTEER and DO YOUR PART...

So how is the survey going, you ask? Slow. Er... to be honest, I haven't started. But at this point I shouldn't be too hard on myself... It's only been a week since I set out to do it.

News about cats

There's a no-kill cat shelter a few blocks from where I live -- Tree House Animal Foundation. Last month, a fire in the building next door to it caused some damage to the shelter and required the evacuation of the its roughly 300 cats. Fortunately, the cats were able to move back after just a few days. But the Tree House incurred costs related to the evacuation and still faces repairs to the building. Even more than usual, it is in need of the community's financial support. Donations can be made via the website.

In other news, Wisconsin will consider a proposal this Monday that would allow the hunting of wild/feral cats in that state. Now, I understand that sometimes cats can be too good at what they do, which is to keep rodent populations down. Too many cats can, in certain ecosystems, put a strain on indigenous small mammal and bird populations. But I do not accept that the hunting of cats is a good solution. Instead, the state can implement a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program. If the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources needs expertise on such a program, they might want to consult with Alley Cat Allies.

You are beautiful

Made you smile. Come on... don't try and hide it.

There's a blue mailbox on my corner. The other day I was dropping some bills in it, and as I tilted its door open, I noticed that someone had placed a sticker on the inside of the door. The sticker read: "You are beautiful."

How unexpected. And such a nice sentiment, directed at no one in particular, but at everyone -- perhaps at some people who have gone for too long without contemplating beauty as it might apply to themselves. I imagine most of what is dropped off in that box consists of bill payments. We arrive there still pressing the moistened adhesive flap against the back of the envelope. We know what our checkbook balance is; we have just done the subtraction and inscribed the numbers in the register. And we could use a little affirmation.

Affordable housing, human rights

Chicago public housing projects like Cabrini Green that were built in the middle of the last century were notorious for poor management and excessive concentration of poverty. Never a great place to live, they deteriorated with neglect over the years. So for about the last decade, the Chicago Housing Authority has been tearing some of the projects down. This would be all well and good, if only the displaced residents had someplace better to go.

Defining affordable housing as that which costs less than one third of household income, the number of Chicagoans who lack affordable housing is in the hundreds of thousands. Tens of thousands of families are on the CHA's waiting list. An increase in public funding could reduce those numbers, but it won't happen in the current political climate. The Republicans in Washington favor market-based approaches. Well, Dr. Friedman, let me tell you about the market economy...

How many of us have been out of work for more than 6 months in the past 3 years? How many of us has a friend or family member who has been in this situation? That's right, Tony, I'm talking about you.

Now for a lot of us in who are comfortably in the middle class, we have assets to fall back on. And credit. Maybe a little something saved up in the bank. And so being out of work for 6 months won't put us out on the street. But what about the McDonald's employee living paycheck to paycheck -- and is then let go? Where is she going to get the money for next month's rent?

According to the United Nations Housing Rights Programme, housing is recognized in the international community as a basic human right. Which means that it is a human rights violation for a government to not take reasonable steps to ensure that all of its citizens have access to housing. So when Cabrini Green residents are evicted, and then there is no housing built for them to move into, the City is in violation of international law.

Broadway: Edgewater's not so magnificent mile

I hate to belittle my own neighborhood's main drag. It's really not so bad. There's some good stuff in spots, especially near 'L' stops. And then there's some seedy stuff -- also near 'L' stops. On the whole, it could be better.

Now that the weather has been getting warmer, I've been thinking about doing my own little survey of Broadway from Foster to Granville -- slightly over one mile. I plan to go block by block, making a record of what's there.

Militarization of Chicago Public Schools: Part II

In the first installment, I said this would be a series, which put an obligation on me to write, at minimum, a Part II. So here it is. If you read this and wonder what it has to do with the Chicago Public Schools -- that'll come in a future installment (if I get around to it!).

Part II: Recruitment Fraud

In Part I, I described how NCLB gives the military greater access to public school students. But so what? So what if the Navy recruiter wanders the halls of your neighborhood high school? He's not forcing anyone to sign up. Right?

But he can't be relied upon as an impartial source of information -- not with the quotas he needs to fill. Here are some things the recruiter won't mention:

* There is no conclusive evidence that military service improves employment prospects. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done a study that shows that unemployment rates are lower for some demographic groups, but higher for others.

* Need money for college? The military won't just give it to you -- you have to pay into the GI Bill program first, and even then, there are circumstances that may disqualify you (in which case they get to keep what you paid in). There are other sources of assistance that may be better and come with fewer strings attached.

* The recruiting agreement is a one-way agreement that is binding on the student, but not on the military. So the military is not bound to make good on any of the promises made at the time of enlistment. (Exhibit A: The backdoor draft.)

Let it be known that I'm not against the military per se. But I am against young men and women being recruited on false pretenses. This past week the Chicago Tribune reported that recruiters are failing to meet quotas -- by a wide margin. This is a result of both increased recruitment goals and lower numbers of recruits. On the one hand, I can speculate that this may be the result of fewer kids falling prey to deceptive tactics; on the other hand, the shortfall may spur the military to recruit kids more aggressively and with less honesty.