Jean Michel

Monday I wrote about the new espresso machine and how it made everything right with the world. It was hyperbole of course, but alas, how I was wrong!

Whenever we would have trouble with our espresso machine, we'd call Jean Michel, the coffee guy, and he'd come and repair the machine. He was the one who pronounced our old machine dead, and it was through him that we ordered our new one. He installed our WMF 1400 on Monday afternoon and stayed into the evening to help us program it. It was one of his last acts.

Tuesday evening, he decided to do some work in his garden before going to bed. His body was discovered there the next morning, tragically, by his two young children. He had suffered a massive heart attack, apparently without warning. Jean Michel was only 53.

It's a reminder of how unpredictable life is. Outwardly, Jean Michel appeared perfectly healthy. Who would have guessed that this could happen to him? When I heard the news, I picked up my coffee cup and got myself a cappuccino. Savor it... who knows what the future holds?

Katrina and people we know

I don't have any close ties to New Orleans. I was lucky enough to have gone there once on vacation, not even two years before it was largely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. I read about all of the lives turned upside down, but among them there was no one I knew personally.

When I saw my graduate advisor earlier in the month (see my August 10 entry), he mentioned that he had recently been down to New Orleans. I was surprised; it doesn't seem like much of a tourist destination these days. He explained that his parents had lived there until last year. They were fortunate that they had the means to evacuate safely, but they won't be returning. My friend's father has Alzheimer's, and he was just getting to the point where he is no longer able to live at home. And now New Orleans is no place for the old man to move back to.

I wasn't able to get all the details of my friend's story straight. His family, I gather, was originally from Kansas, and that may be where his parents will end up. Just a couple of individuals in the diaspora of New Orleans spread across the country. I may not have close ties to New Orleans, but this story makes me wonder: How far removed is any of us from Katrina?

The existentialist President

I wrote an entry in early July that revealed some of my summer reading list. One of the books was The Stranger by Albert Camus. So I thought it was quite a coincidence when I heard a few weeks ago that President Bush was also reading The Stranger. The President and I reading the same book simultaneously? What does it mean??? It just seems so, so... absurd.

Food and beverages

Last summer I lamented the closing of Cafe Boost, which had been the only place in my neighborhood where I could get Homer's ice cream. Recently, however, I found that I can get my Homer's fix even closer to home. Coffee Chicago, at the corner of Berwyn and Broadway, started selling Homer's ice cream sometime around July, and there's still a little bit of summer left to enjoy it.

The espresso machine at work broke down last week. We called the repairman, but there was nothing he could do. The machine was designed for 6,000 shots of espresso, and we had dispensed an incredible 70,000 in just 18 months. When word got out that it had made its last cup, panic quickly spread throughout the office. This was the sort of crisis, however, that even management could readily comprehend, and they sprang into action. This afternoon our shiny, new WMF 1400 arrived. It makes espresso, cappuccino, hot chocolate, and any combination of these you can think of, and all is once again as it should be.

Still here

I haven't been very good lately about updating the blog. Lots going on. For instance, just yesterday, I unexpectedly got an injection of lidocaine in my butt. So as you can see, there's hardly a dull moment in my life.

Diversions

Last Sunday at an art fair in Evanston, I happened to see the college professor who was my advisor in grad school. It was the first time I'd seen him in years. He was selling his fractal art, similar to stuff I've posted here, only better. He was telling me about a course he taught last semester in which he had his students reverse engineer mechanical creatures created by Dutch artist Theo Jansen. The reverse engineering was done by looking at video footage of the "strandbeests" in action (click here for video from Jansen's site -- WARNING: large MPEG file!). After completing this task, the students modified the design to give the creature a more optimal gait.

I took a short bike ride along the lakefront Wednesday evening and stopped at the bird sanctuary near Addison. I saw a black-crowned night heron. It's not a terribly rare bird, but it is not common in Chicago. It's the first time I'd ever seen one.

What happened yesterday in Connecticut

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

In 2000, Joe Lieberman made the Democratic Party's presidential ticket. He ran for President in 2004 and was an early front runner in the primaries. But yesterday, he couldn't even muster the support of his home state's Democratic voters. Instead, Ned Lamont will be running as the Democrat for Lieberman's Senate seat.

I have heard much idiotic post-mortem analysis on this primary, some of it coming from our unofficial seat of government, Crawford, TX. Bush's Press Secretary Tony Snow put out a statement in which he says: "I think ... it's a defining moment for the Democratic Party whose national leaders now have made it clear that if you disagree with the extreme left in their party, they're going to come after you."

Give me a break. The "extreme left" brought Lieberman down? Here's my take...

Lieberman felt free to criticize a Democratic President for his personal failings, but questions the patriotism of anyone who criticizes the current Republican President, stating that this would "undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

Lieberman aligned himself with the Christian Right in trying to overturn the decision of the courts in the Terri Schiavo case.

Lieberman has often supported supply-side economic policies that favor corporations at the expense of individuals. While he voted against the Republicans' punitive bankruptcy reform bill in 2005, he helped its passage by failing to support a filibuster.

Lieberman has supported school voucher programs, which draw federal funds away from the public schools.

Lieberman, on issues of foreign policy, is a neocon.

Lieberman rarely passes up an opportunity to appear on Fox News with right-wing pundits to attack his fellow Democrats.

Lieberman was singled out for a kiss on the cheek (no joke!) by President Bush after Bush's 2005 State of the Union address. (The kiss of death?)

Lieberman announced that he'd run as an independent if he lost the primary -- the Democratic Party be damned.

And so on.

Lieberman won endorsements from prominent Democrats, such as the two Senators from my home state of Illinois -- Dick Durbin and Barack Obama. Bill Clinton also helped campaign for him. On the other hand, right-wing pundit Sean Hannity offered his endorsement on Hannity's radio show, and Lieberman was also endorsed by Ann Coulter as her "favorite Democrat." I think the endorsements from opposite sides of the political spectrum cancel each other out rather than reinforce each other.

Joe Lieberman, in the end, came to represent the interests of entrenched power. And so he preferred to stay inside the bubble of the political pundits and the D.C. politicians where everyone loved him. But the people who mattered -- Connecticut Democrats -- were appalled at many of the positions outlined above, and they felt Ned Lamont could do better.

When it came time for Lieberman to concede defeat, he announced his candidacy as an independent, just as he had threatened. Early polling had shown that Lieberman would win such a contest handily, thanks to Republicans who would cross party lines to vote for him. I heard several commentators express this view last night. But a more recent Rasmussen poll had Lieberman (as Ind.) and Lamont (as Dem.) tied at 40% apiece. I suspect that Lieberman will discover who his fair-weather friends are, now that he's lost the support of his party, and I don't think it is likely he'll win in November.

Off Target: Response to living wage ordinance

Today Target Corp. announced that they're backing out of plans to build a Target store in Chicago as a result of City Council passing the living wage ordinance. They didn't come to this decision because the ordinance would make the difference between a profitable and an unprofitable store. It's a gambit. By pulling the plug on the store, they give up a little revenue growth and maybe a teeny tiny slice of market share in the short run. But if they can get just two aldermen to change their minds, making the measure vulnerable to the mayor's veto, it will be worth the cost.

Some math... Target Corporation has approximately 300,000 employees and 1500 stores -- about 200 employees per store, but not all work a full 40 hour week. I imagine that a typical store employs around 5000 worker-hours of labor per week. The ordinance requires total compensation of $13/hr by 2010, but in today's dollars, that's just $11.50 (assuming roughly 3% annual inflation), or $5/hr above Illinois' minimum wage. If all of the 5000 weekly worker hours are paid at minimum wage (worst case), the differential would be $25,000 per store per week on the high end. Because some workers already earn more than $6.50/hr, the differential would probably be more in the $15,000 per week range. If all 1500 stores were subject to similar regulation, it would cost Target a little over $1 billion per year, or about 2% of revenues. This would be upsetting to the relatively small number of major shareholders. But it would make a huge impact on the lives of many of its 300,000 employees.