Week in review: Iraqi Constitution Ratified

(Week in review)

I wrote about concerns that failure to ratify the constitution could derail the whole nation building process. The constitution was ratified, keeping everything on schedule. But is it a good constitution, and will it stabilize Iraq? I have my doubts, but I don't have the time to delve into the details at the moment...

[30 OCT 2005 13:00:00] Update: Time's up! That was eight posts in one hour. Whew!

Week in review: A man named Scooter

(Week in review)

More disturbing news this week. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on obstruction of justice charges related to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. This was the guy who ran the Vice President's office.

The indictment is avaliable online. I found it interesting that the defendant is identified as "I. LEWIS LIBBY, also known as 'SCOOTER LIBBY.'" I'm still wondering what the 'I' stands for.

Week in review: Rosa Parks

Sad news this week. Rosa Parks died. She showed people that you don't need to open your mouth to make a statement or use your fists to strike a blow. She sat. And she made the world a better place.

For much of her life, she lived in Detroit and served on the staff of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), currently the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. You can read his statement at his website.

Week in review: Harriet Miers

(Week in review)

I must say, I love her blog. When it was announced that she was withdrawing as SCOTUS candidate, the color scheme was changed to a somber black. But last I checked, it's back to a cheerful pink. Things must be looking up for her.

Week in review: Sox win

(Week in review)

I'm a north-sider. A Cubs fan. Not a huge fan of the Sox, but I'm not one to see everything as black and white.

Within the city limits, you can hardly get more north side than West Rogers Park, but when I drove through that neighborhood on my way to work Thursday morning, I noticed some of the Orthodox Jews were wearing a different kind of black hat.

Week in review: EBNA Elections

(Week in review)

Tuesday was the monthly meeting of my block club, Edgewater Beach Neighbors Association. I ran for Secretary/Treasurer and was elected to the position. No one ran against me, so intimidating was I as an opponent.

Week in review: Band concert

(Week in review)

Last night was the Buffalo Grove Symphonic Band's fall concert, one of two formal concerts we do each year. I was having trouble getting interested in the music, and rehearsals were pretty shaky up until the last two weeks, so I was getting a little nervous. But the concert went really well. I think we played better in the concert than in any of the rehearsals.

As usual, I forgot to pick up a program. Here is what I remember of the program:

Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper by Jaromir Weinberger
Selections from the movie Beauty and the Beast
An American In Paris by George Gershwin
Selections from Les Miserables by Claude-Michel Schonberg
Selections from The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar
Selections from Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber
Les Preludes by Franz Liszt (a.k.a. theme from Flash Gordon)
Perpetuum Mobile by J. Strauss Jr. (as an encore)

I might have forgotten something. If I did, I'll update the list later.

Week in review

What a week to take a vacation from the blog! So much happened while I was away. Since I got an extra hour last night, I'll use that hour to post as many entries as I can. It'll be like the blog version of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.

Buffalo Grove band in the news: Part 2

In my previous entry on the Daily Herald article, I expressed some disappointment that the online version of the article didn't include the pictures. I just got a hard copy of the September 5th edition. This picture was taken at a concert we played at Independence Grove in Libertyville:



(I tried to remove as much of the scanning artifacts as possible, but you can still see the wrinkles in the newspaper.) Before the sun set, the photographer was able to get this picture of Band Director Howard Green in action:



[Disclaimer: I'm sure these photos are the copyrighted property of the Daily Herald. I'm using them without their permission, but I'm thinking they're not so petty as to complain about these crappy little scanned images.]

By the way, the band is playing a concert next weekend, so I might be taking a hiatus from the blog this week in order to spend more time practicing.

Fun with insulation

My apartment building isn't very tightly built, so last weekend I got a spray can of insulating foam for filling gaps where drafts come in. When I was done with it, in accordance with the instructions on the can, I set the can upright and let the foam in the dispensing tube cure. But the foam kept coming out.



It didn't stop until all the material was evacuated from the can. Creepy looking, huh?

Fighting City Hall

I guess it can be done.

Last year there was talk of extending Lake Shore Drive north to Evanston and creating a park out of the entire Rogers Park stretch of lakefront, including a marina at Loyola University. My congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky, got a million dollars in US Department of Transportation funds for a feasibility study on the highway extension, and some architects were asked to come up with conceptual designs.

This was not met with much enthusiasm from neighborhood residents. They drafted a referendum opposing the development plans and were able to get it put on the 49th ward ballots in the November 2004 elections. The referendum passed by a 7-1 margin, but that didn't kill the project.

The idea of developing the lakefront was favored by Mayor Daley and by Jan Schakowsky (as reported by the Morse Hellhole blogger), and when people in high places get an idea to do something, it often happens, regardless of what their constituents think. Despite the referendum results, the Chicago Park District presented plans last month for "Edgewater Harbor."

The Park District held a public meeting on Thursday at Loyola Park (it was advertised at the Rogers Park Conservancy website -- urbsinhorto.org). I had band practice and couldn't attend, but the Chicago Tribune reported on it in yesterday's paper:

Chicago Park District officials said Thursday they were dropping proposals for a harbor in Rogers Park.

The Park District made the decision halfway through a public meeting that packed 300 people into the gymnasium of the Loyola Park fieldhouse.

It was a big victory for the will of the people.

Apple IIGS emulator

Here I expose myself as a computer nerd.

In my posting from earlier in the week, I gave a link to a site where you can play Oregon Trail on an Apple emulator. On the same site are other disk images you can load on the emulator. I've spent some time this week trying some of them out. I had played some of these games when I was a kid, and I must say, back in the good old days, computer games weren't very good.

Because of limited graphics capabilities (a whole 6 colors at 280x180 resolution on the Apple ][+), a lot of the games were primarily text based. Sound effects consisted of bleeps and bloops that were sometimes strung together in a vague and annoying semblance of music. And everything was... so... slow.

As for the emulator itself, I commend the good work of its developers. It really is just like using an Apple II computer -- with a few exceptions. As with all emulators of this type, I/O is a problem. It's simple enough to make virtual registers and address spaces and to execute instructions just like a real processor. But interfacing the emulator to real hardware -- such as monitor, mouse, keyboard, and sound card -- is a bit more challenging. For instance, the Apple ][+ keyboard worked differently than today's standard keyboard, so when you play some of the games through the emulator, you need to hold the shift key down.

Sukkot

Lots of holidays in the month of Tishrei... Today was the first day of Sukkot, an important Jewish holiday, being one of the three pilgrimage festivals described in the Torah (the other two are Pesach and Shavuot). It is also a harvest festival, similar to Thanksgiving.

I drove down Touhy Avenue on my way to work this morning, in the heart of West Rogers Park. The Orthodox Jews were out and about, on their way to synagogue. They were all carrying their lulavs in these clear plastic carrying cases that looked specially made for the purpose, which astonished me.

My back porch almost makes a proper sukkah. With the blinds tied down, it has the required number of walls, and it is sufficiently open to the air. But it really ought to be a temporary structure. In any case, I decided to decorate my porch for the holiday with pumpkins and gourds. (To make sure these cucurbits won't become food for squirrels, I anointed them with a concoction of olive oil and crushed serrano chiles. So far, so good.)

Diversions

On my computer at work, I set up my DOS window to display text in phosphor green against a greenish-black background. It reminds me of a simpler time, when CPU speeds were in megahertz and CRTs were monochrome.

Back in those days of my youth, my elementary school purchased some Apple ][+ computers that came with one of the first really successful "edutainment" computer games: Oregon Trail. I recently found a web site where you can play it online. (Unfortunately, the Apple emulator only runs on Windows machines, so you're out of luck if you have a Macintosh. Go figure.) This version is the 1985 release for Apple //e, which is a little different from the 1981 version with which I was familiar.

Another game from that era I used to play was the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure. It was made by the same company (Infocom) that made the groundbreaking Zork. This one was ported to a Java applet and is available at douglasadams.com. Note that the opening screen displayed on the web page is really just an animated GIF. To get to the real game, you need to enter 851108 in the text box on the bottom of the page. The two main objectives of the game: Get real tea (as opposed to tea substitute), and collect different kinds of fuzz.

Goings on

Yesterday was the Fall Festival at Cedar Park, a children's play lot near where I live. I know some people on the Cedar Park Advisory Council, so I decided to stop over there in the last hour of the festival.

When I got there, the park was mobbed with literally hundreds of people, mostly under the age of twelve. And I was told that the crowd had already thinned out. It may be hyperbole, but it was said that at its most crowded, there was hardly room to move anywhere in the park.

Three years ago, Cedar Park had a look of neglect about it. It was overrun with weeds, and some sort of vine had taken over the back fence and was threatening to engulf the swing set. The paint on the playground equipment was faded and peeling. Originally intended for the enjoyment of young children, it attracted an older and rougher crowd. No parent wanted their kid playing in an environment like that.

So some people from the Edgewater Beach Neighbors Association (EBNA) got together and formed the Cedar Park Advisory Council, and they cleaned up the park. This summer the park hosted a series of concerts (I think they were even trying to book Ella Jenkins) and a yard sale, and then yesterday was the Fall Festival.

Moving on to today... I decided to get a hot dog at Huey's in Andersonville, where I often eat lunch on Sundays. I had forgotten that this weekend was the Andersonville Art Walk. All along Clark, neighborhood artists were showing their work. The quality varied, but it was all good in its own way. It was, at least, a good opportunity to go into the little shops lining the street. I came across a Suzuki recital, which was of particular interest to me, having once been a student of the Suzuki method. The recital was at Sweet Occasions, a bakery and ice cream parlor that opened up just last month.

Iraqi Referendum

In March of last year, the Iraqi Governing Council, operating under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), drafted the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) -- hailed by the US government as a roadmap to democracy.

The TAL laid out a schedule for various milestones on the way to complete sovereignty. The first milestone was the transfer of authority from the CPA to the Iraqi Interim Government; this was originally to be done on June 30, 2004, but security concerns made it necessary to make the transfer on June 28, apparently in violation of Article 2(B)(1) of the TAL. (But it was ahead of schedule, so who's gonna complain?)

The second milestone, specified in Article 2(B)(2), was the election of a National Assembly and formation of the Iraqi Transitional Government. This was the the purple thumb day you might remember from this past January (which gave us the not-so-randomly-selected purple thumb at the State of the Union address).

I don't think the news media made it clear enough what the purple thumb event signified. I often heard it being described as the moment of transition to a democratically elected government, but this wasn't entirely correct. The Iraqi Transitional Government is a short-lived entity that is to persist until December 15 at the latest. And the National Assembly elected in January is more of a constitutional convention. Article 60 of the TAL states that the National Assembly's role is to draft a constitution, and Article 61 sets October 15 -- today -- as the deadline for a general referendum on it.

There is some concern that enough Sunnis will vote against the constitution to prevent its ratification. So then what happens? Article 61(E) states:

If the referendum rejects the draft permanent constitution, the National Assembly shall be dissolved. Elections for a new National Assembly shall be held no later than 15 December 2005. The new National Assembly and new Iraqi Transitional Government shall then assume office no later than 31 December 2005, and shall continue to operate under [the TAL]... The new National Assembly shall be entrusted with writing another draft permanent constitution.

...Which sounds all well and good, but the timeline set out in the TAL ends here. So if the constitution doesn't get ratified by today's vote, it could be a long, hard road ahead. But then, that could be the case regardless of the outcome.

Chess and blogging

There's an online chess engine I like to play against to kill time: the Accoona Artificial Intelligence chess game. While I'm playing, I'm supposedly training it to play against me. (If you play chess at all, I'd encourage you to go the site and help train the program.) Since I'm not a very strong chess player, I usually play against its easy setting, and most of the time, it does play a reasonable game of chess. Occasionally, though, it has a very, very bad day. Not long ago, I delivered checkmate in an embarrassing 15 moves. A few days later, it played the same opening line but made some improvements and lasted a few more moves. I've recorded the game and added a few annotations (get out your chessboard):

[M. Maslov v. Accoona Artificial Intelligence--Easy] 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 g6 A variation of Caro-Kann, but my opening repertoire is weak, and I'm already out of my book. 4.e5 Be6 5.Nf3 Nd7 6.Bd3 Bh6 In a previous game, the computer played 6...Nh6 instead, after which the dark bishops stayed on the board. 7.Bxh6 Nxh6 8.h3 Nf5 9.Bxf5 Bxf5 In a previous game, with a similar position, the computer recaptured with the pawn, which was a mistake. 10.0-0 Qb6 11.b3 Qb4 12.Qd2 Rd8 The program is supposed to play more like a human, but shuffling the rook on the back rank is a classic computer move. 13.a3 Qa5 14.b4 Qb6 15.Rfc1 0-0? Black castles into trouble. 16.Qh6 Be4?? Black doesn't understand the trouble he's in. 17.Ng5 Re8 18.Qxh7+ Kf8 19.Qxf7#

The Accoona Chess website has also been reporting on the World Championship match being held for the last two weeks in San Luis, Argentina, and through this, I somehow stumbled upon the site of a fellow Blogspot blogger: Susan Polgar. She happens to be one of the top chess players in the world, and here she's blogging on the same server as me. My ones and zeroes are not worthy! While I might gloat over my success against a weak computer program, against Ms. Polgar (either Susan or her sister Judit), I'd be lucky to survive much more than two moves (1.f3 e5 2.g4 Qh4#).

An affordable housing policy

I've been meaning to write about my experience representing my block club at the (48th Ward) alderman's Planning and Zoning meeting in July. It was at that meeting that the block club representatives voted in favor of a CPAN affordable housing set-aside policy. (I first wrote about this back in April.) The policy requires that for each planned development (a planned development cannot be built as of right) larger than 10 units, 10% of the units must be set aside for the CPAN program. A lottery is used to select among applicants, with 50% of the units reserved for 48th Ward residents.

From the caterwauling I've been hearing from some in the community, you'd think we'd just voted to rebuild Cabrini Green in Edgewater. This just demonstrates the ignorance of these people regarding the CPAN program -- and regarding affordable housing in general.

The CPAN program is meant to assist working people, with incomes of up to about $80,000 for a family of four, in buying their own home. It is not housing projects. It is not even housing for poor people. And it doesn't solve the housing problem for people on the extreme low end of the economic scale. But it at least makes more housing available to people with moderate incomes.

There are some who say that the market should always dictate the availability of housing, and that it is unfair that there are these people who get a bargain on their units while the rest of us pay market prices. I can't say that, lest I be called a hypocrite. Back when I bought my first home, I did so with the help of a loan subsidized by HUD that got me a below-market interest rate. Was this unfair to all the other people in my neighborhood who had to get more expensive mortgages?

Changing directions a bit... At that same alderman's meeting, I was instructed by my block club to vote against approval of a huge project on Broadway -- a block-long, five-story wall of a building that is out of scale with anything else on the street (see the summary of my survey). I didn't do a very good job of arguing my block club's position, however; the vote went against me 19-1. Ouch.

Like there's no tomorrow

I missed an interesting Senn Tomorrow Task Force meeting last month. From what I hear, the chairman resigned and no replacement was named. This effectively dissolves the task force.

It looks like the pessimism I expressed in my last entry on Senn High School was well founded. Many of the task force members really wanted to see something good come out of it, and so they formed a new group -- Friends of Senn. Unlike Senn Tomorrow, Friends of Senn is not supported by any governmental unit. I've heard they would like to work more closely with the Local School Council, but the LSC has been pushed around and undermined so much through this whole thing, I wouldn't be surprised if they resist any outside help.

I also missed last month's Save Senn Coalition meeting, and I'm not sure what the status is of that group. In my previous entry, I gave a link to their new website, but when I checked the link just now, I was directed to a Go Daddy page that says: "This domain name expired on 09/25/05 and is pending renewal or deletion."

A day of music

Yesterday was the 9th annual Marshall Field's Day of Music at Symphony Center.

The first Day of Music was part of the celebration for the opening of Chicago's Symphony Center in 1997. The Chicago Symphony was so proud of the expanded facilities, consisting of a renovated Orchestra Hall plus new office and performance space, that they decided to open it up to the public, free of charge, for 24 hours. That first year, people lined up literally around the block to get in -- it was a huge success.

Marshall Field's has been the sponsor for this event for all nine years of its existence, and they've aggressively associated their name with it. One sign I saw yesterday read:

Marshall Field's Day of Music
is sponsored by:

Marshall Field's

In case this still left a smidgen of doubt, volunteers offered Frangos to people leaving through the Adams St. exit. This will no doubt be the last Marshall Field's Day of Music, since the brand is being swallowed up by Macy's. I hope Federated Department Stores continues to support the event in coming years, although I'll have to retrain my tongue to say Macy's Day of Music.

As for the music, it was wonderful as usual. I missed the two o'clock performance of the CSO on account of construction delays on the 'L'. When I ran into some people I know as it was letting out, they raved about Lang Lang, the piano soloist. I was able to see him later in the day when he and Daniel Barenboim gave a double piano recital. It was amazing -- beyond words to describe. (Trivia: One of Lang Lang's big career breakthroughs came when he was called to perform as a substitute at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL -- one of my favorite places.)

I was also able to peek in on the Ella Jenkins performance through the ballroom windows. Now 81 years old, she's been a regular performer at this event. One year I met her and told her I grew up listening to her music, and she gave me a hug.

L'Shana Tova

The handsome couple pictured below are not related to me -- not quite. They were the machetonim (in-laws) of my first cousin twice removed.



Were they alive today, not only would they be extremely old, but they would be very much surprised to find their faces displayed here. Amerika ganif! -- they might say, although it's not just in America anymore where one can experience such wonders of the modern world as computers, digitized photos, the Internet, and Flickr accounts. This particular photo came to me from my cousins in Argentina.

On the reverse side of the photo, in Yiddish, is written:

12 March 1927

To our dear and very beloved children ... and to our dear grandchildren, .... may you all be happy and healthy. We, your parents, send you our pictures as good wishes and also wish you, from deep in our hearts, great good fortune.

The hat the man is wearing, a type of yarmulke, identifies him as a devout Jew of Eastern Europe. This yarmulke is remarkable in that I don't think I've ever seen such a tall one.

Someone took my picture

I was riding the 'L' at dusk today. A young couple sat in an aisle-facing bench, two or three rows in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the female half of the couple take a point-and-shoot digital camera out of her bag and start taking pictures, the flash turned off. I wasn't sure what she saw that was so interesting, and I didn't really care. I kept most of my attention focused on the dimly lit streetscape passing by outside the window.

Suddenly, a red light appeared, reflected in the window at precisely the point where my gaze was fixed. The light was from the camera and was aimed at my reflection. I can imagine the picture: the ghostly image of some random passenger who happens to be me against a blurred silhouette of nondescript buildings, trees, and the bell tower of St. Ita's.

Natural gas even more expensive

When natural gas hit $12 per million BTUs, I wrote about it. The price has continued to rise since then, finishing the week just past at around $14 per million BTUs.

The fact that the price has roughly doubled in the last year does not necessarily mean that your gas bill will also double from what it was last winter. That's partly because utilities can buy some natural gas at a price agreed upon by contract, which might be lower than the market price at the time it is delivered to your home. Still, $14 per million BTUs is higher than it's ever been, and the longer the price stays up there, the greater the effect will be on prices at the meter this winter.

Brain dump

The Chicago Botanic Garden is having a bulb sale this weekend, so I stopped there on the way home from work yesterday... only to find that they closed up shop at 5 o'clock.

This morning, I washed my cat's blankie, which she hasn't touched in months. I found her curled up on it just minutes after taking it out of the dryer. Fresh off that success, I decided I'd give the Botanic Garden another try.

When I turned onto Broadway, around the corner from my place, I unexpectedly found myself on a parade route. There were floats decorated in green and white, and they were populated with black people in white gowns. As a white guy in a blue Jetta, I felt a little out of place in that parade. It turns out that today, October 1, is Nigerian Independence Day -- the 45th anniversary of the day the country gained independence from Britain.

Even when I got past the parade route, traffic was terrible. It took an hour to get to the Botanic Garden.

Aside from the bulb sale, they held a bluegrass festival today, which really isn't such a big thing in this part of the country. But I guess some people like it. Other news -- in two weeks, they'll put up a sukkah in the vegetable garden. Today I walked through the vegetable garden and saw the gourds that will be used to decorate the sukkah. Some looked like brown, flattened pumpkins, some like large, green geese, some like something from another planet.

I did get to buy my bulbs. This year I took extra care to get ones that the squirrels would hate. I got Siberian squill, two varieties of Narcissus, and three varieties of ornamental onion.

Going home, I went a little out of my way to stop at the Petco in Lincoln Park (more traffic). This was to register for tomorrow's PAWS Chicago Run for Their Lives event. I acquired another T-shirt, of course, following an unwritten rule that one of these must be given out at every fundraising event.