Chicago’s city government effectively cultivates the image that Chicago is a ‘green’ city. The city touts projects and policies such as its accelerated ‘green’ building permit procedures and the green roofs springing up around the city’s buildings. I question how much substance there really is behind Chicago’s self-proclaimed “green city” status. Chicago doesn’t put much effort into citywide recycling or trash reduction efforts, nor does it put a lot of effort into energy or water conservation. Hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars fund improvements to our clogged highways that will permit even more cars to be on the road, ultimately, but we invest practically nothing in improving or even just maintaining our mass transit system. Being really ‘green’ isn’t as easy as sticking some Kentucky bluegrass on the roof of City Hall and getting the city’s name listed next to Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, Cambridge, MA, and other ‘green’ cities in newspaper and magazine articles — it should require some commitment and a willingness to make sacrifices in certain areas to improve the city’s environmental condition and environmental impact.  You gotta put your money where your mouth is.

So, I ask that one of our quixotic aldermen, now armed with a theoretically Daley-proof majority of indepedent councilors, consider proposing a city ordinance regarding the use of plastic shopping bags.  (I’m fascinated by the idea, as evidenced by two prior posts on this same subject.)  San Francisco recently enacted that kind of legislation — their ordinance doesn’t go so far as to tax or ban all plastic bags outright, but insists that the ubiquitous bags handed out with most every store purchase at least be made of recycled materials. Not only is this good environmental policy in a macro sense (saves tons of oil — especially if a very big city like Chicago were to ban the use of non-recycled bags), but discouraging the rampant use of non-biodegradable plastic bags makes our city cleaner and reduces the amount of trash we produce.

Will something like this happen here in Chicago? I doubt it very much. Such a proposal would inevitably result in howling protests from small and big business alike over the financial costs imposed by these sorts of policies. There may be merit to their complaints, but then again, we don’t make all our public policy decisions based solely on what is profitable for private companies. If we did, policies like smoking bans and workplace safety regulations simply wouldn’t not exist, because it’s not great for business.  And if the concern is putting too much of a burden on small businesses, consideration should be given to, say, a nominal tax — two or three cents — per bag. (Revenue stream for the city!)  Same result (fewer bags), less painful for businesses.  (In fact they get to order fewer bags as people ‘opt out’ of paying the bag tax by BYOB.)

Those who seriously aspire for Chicago to be on the forefront of the green city movement should also push hard for us to go beyond what’s easy or symbolic and start following the example set by our friends on the left coast.

For those of you who 1) enjoy procrastinating on the Internet and 2) love to eat and drink as much as possible before you get old and health concerts prevent such irresponsible behavior and 3) enjoy wasting lots of time reading honest and useful reviews of Chicago’s eating, drinking, shopping, and entertainment establishments (and my dentist), you need to Yelp. Yelp is a social reviewing site — let’s call it city-oriented reviews by city users. Check out my Yelp.com home page at lgriffin.yelp.com. So cool — it’s like MySpace without the 12-year-olds and lame bands trying to get some attention.

I have become hooked on Yelp. You can find multiple reviews of pretty much any restaurant or bar in the city, plus many stores, concert venues, and other establishments. You can use it to supplement ‘official’ reviews (like the ‘official’ reviews I read in Time Out, which I am actually just sick of getting in the mail at this point) or find new places to go that are off the beaten path. Or if you know where you are going, Yelp has a map function that shows nearby restaurants, bars, etc. on a Google Map. It even lets you bookmark places you might want to go later. And you can access it all from your ‘mobile device’ if you’re already out on the street.

The reviewers range from those who barely speak English to those who write some really helpful reviews, but it beats the hell out of trusting CitySearch. If you like Chicago Reader Reviews or Centerstage, you’ll definitely like Yelp. And they have it for other cities too, if you ever decide to leave Chicago. In short, it’s a pretty cool tool for those who like to make the most of big city life.

While I am very skeptical of how winning the international competition and bringing the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago would affect our community (suffice it to say that there will be winners and losers among us plebes in Daley’s fiefdom), I nonetheless felt a little bit excited by the news over the weekend that Chicago will be the U.S. bid city. It wasn’t because of some enthusiasm over Chicago beating out LA, but maybe more a curiosity about how this Olympic business willl play out in the coming years. While I agree with those who say there are certainly many urgent problems that need to be addressed in Chicago, part of me believes it is important for a great city to always have an eye looking forward to the future and find new opportunities for Chicago to change and grow, in addition to fixing some of the problems we struggle with today. (Failure to work toward a better future could soon render us more like St. Louis than we want to be.) In balancing those competing priorities lies the big-picture challenge, me thinks.

I also find myself wondering, were the millions in private dollars pouring into the Chicago Olympic bid efforts given out of generosity and a sense of civic duty, or is it simply akin to business interests and developers buying a ‘lottery ticket’ that they hope pays off big someday? And, also, after a conversation with a real estate agent last week, I wonder, would it be wise for me to buy a condo with commanding views of the future Olympic site in hopes that I can cash in as well? And with that, I now realize that in just one short year living here full-time I’ve started to acquire the soul of a true Chicagoan, fulfilling Mike Royko’s alternative to the city motto Urbs in Horto (”City in a Garden”) by asking aloud that refrain which echoes throughout the city’s halls of power, Ubi est Mea, or “Where’s mine?”

Richard Carnahan at Gaper’s Block again offers some insight into the city council runoffs.  He shines a little light on a spirited and expensive race between incumbent Ald. Ted Matlak and challenger Scott Waguespack in the 32nd Ward.  He also handicaps several other run-offs.

Recently, as part of a neighborhood feature package, the Chicago Reader published an article about 46th Ward (Uptown) Alderman Helen Shiller in light of her recent victory in an intense race with James Cappleman.  To put it mildly, given everything I had heard bad about Shiller (mostly from the Cappleman campaign) prior to the election, I found myself wondering why the hell this article wasn’t published before the election.  (I had assumed Shiller was in Daley’s back pocket — especially since their names were plastered on campaign posters together.  That they coordinated their electioneering efforts aside, the article suggests my assumptions about Shiller might be wrong.)

After reading these articles, I found myself wondering why neither the Sun-Times nor the Tribune, with considerable editorial resources at their disposal, cover city politics in nearly as much depth as a blogger and a free/indie newspaper reporter did in these two articles.   (Maybe that’s part of the reason their circulation is suffering — if I can’t get some unique locally-oriented coverage from a Chicago paper, why wouldn’t I go to The New York Times, LA Times or the Washington Post for my daily news intake?)

At least one man doesn’t think so. Richard Carnahan’s recent post at Gaper’s Block in part inspired the post below regarding the impact of big money on aldermanic races. His essay discusses why Chicago’s city government — the City Council in particular — cannot be trusted to put on an Olympic Games. It’s well worth reading.

The alderman is not really a legislator; they are more like the executive official of their ward. This is why they get so much heat when things aren’t going right, and this is why they’re so dependent on the Fifth Floor to dispense the services they need to keep their constituents from getting pissed off.

It also leads them to start thinking of their wards as projects or enterprises they are in charge of cultivating and growing. They talk about “making progress” in their ward, they talk about the future of “the ward” as if the ward is a concrete thing (and not, as it in reality is, more or less an imaginary construct) that has hopes and aspirations. This, naturally, causes them to begin to disregard what their individual constituents, or even groups of concerned constituents, have to say about how things in the ward are changing.

…

So it is nonsensical when aldermen allow developers to come in and build obtrusive condos or townhouses that will by necessity drive up property values and therefore taxes, driving out long-time residents and renters (not to mention change the complexion of businesses) and then say, “Well, that’s what the ward needs.”

The most consistent storyline as we stumble toward the 12 aldermanic runoffs on April 17 is the squabbling between candidates over where they got their campaign dough. It’s profoundly ironic that issues of substance (e.g. which candidate is actually more qualified) are practically ignored because the candidates are busy slinging mud and pointing fingers at each other over their campaign contributions. Here’s one prime example noted in a recent edition of the Beachwood Reporter’s Daily Papers:

Labor Pains
“Meanwhile, three other aldermen whose political opponents have received heavy support from organized labor were preparing to introduce an amendment to the city’s ethics ordinance that would restrict union contributions in city elections,” the Tribune reports.

“Huge labor donations have become ‘one of the most outrageous things in terms of campaign finance,’ said Ald. George Cardenas (12th), one of the sponsors.”

Cardenas is less outraged about the $228,465 he received from business in the last go-around.

It’s probably always been the case that big money dominates city elections. But it just seems so blatant these days. The Daley/big business-funded candidates point their fingers at the candidates who get money from unions, inveighing against the unions as outsiders (often insinuating, it seems to me that, racial innuendos regarding union interference in predominantly minority wards).

Can you be any more hypocritical without breaking out in laughter? The unions wouldn’t be pouring thousands of member dues into city elections in if big business hadn’t bought a sustained veto of the Living Wage Ordinance last fall, the spark that set years of union dissatisfaction with the Daley machine aflame. (I learned this morning from a NPR segment that the big businesses tend to obscure their contributions by funneling them through multiple individuals and organizations, while unions tend to give in large chunks directly to candidates. Say what you will, but at least the unions aren’t hiding their hand… as much.) All of the ‘establishment’ candidates in run-offs have happily taken thousands from developers and other business interests and yet they throw tantrums over their opponent’s spending union dough.

On one hand, I’m happy that there are competitive elections and that someone is challenging Daley’s dominance over the City Council. The city needs better oversight now more than ever. But what I’d rather see people start talking about is campaign finance reform on the local level. The big spenders, the national labor organizations and property developers and other businesses, have at least one thing in common — none of them really give a shit what happens to the people who actually live in the wards of the city of Chicago. They care whether union members will benefit from city policies or whether they’ll get to build a Wal-Mart or huge condo in that ward or whether the city will cut them fat checks from the TIF slush funds. The folks bankrolling these elections have their own agendas, and thus, the constituents fall to the bottom of both candidates’ respective lists of priorities.

(more…)

The following observations might be too obvious to merit a long essay that recites what others have said more eloquently and thoughtfully than I, but I feel compelled to share them anyway. The vast majority of Americans, myself included, do not feel truly the costs of the war in Iraq. Reflecting on the subject at great length, I have come to the conclusion that we, as a nation, have sacrificed little in the name of this foreign policy boondoggle.

It is those soldiers — those who have died, those who were injured in combat, and those who have simply evaded death or injury to date — and those soldiers’ families and loved ones who have made a sacrifice.

Instead, we have dumped almost the entire burden of an ill-conceived mission, for which we are all jointly responsible, on America’s soldiers. They have served nobly, against a brutal opposition in a foreign place under questionable circumstances, without question. It is those soldiers — those who have died, those who were injured in combat, and those who have simply evaded death or injury to date — and those soldiers’ families and loved ones who have made a sacrifice. We owe these people who sacrificed on our behalf more than lip service for the cost they’ve paid. We owe them a good hard examination of what brought us to this point and realistic plan to get as many of them as possible out of Iraq, to stop compounding our national mistake at their expense.

I once wrote several opinion pieces in, let’s call it, skeptical support of the war in Iraq. I thought that some good could come from removing Saddam from power, that it would result in greater U.S. engagement in the Middle East and that the lives of thousands of Iraqis could be improved. I was skeptical, because I thought the Bush administration had other motives and I wasn’t buying the WMDs argument, but the war seemed like a rational idea at the time. I was 20 years old then, and boy was I wrong. Horribly wrong, and I am sorry for it. Maybe I write essays like this and feel so moved by the stories of our soldiers because I feel guilty. But, at this point, I think all of us should feel more than a little guilty about what has transpired in the past few years.

As an aside, it isn’t like there are no costs imposed on the nation as a whole. On the contrary, there are grave costs, and the people who led us into this mess have done everything they can to obscure those costs. Through “special” and “emergency” appropriations, the Bush administration obtains the minimal amount of money necessary to sustain the Iraqi boondoggle. Man, I bet many Americans wish that if something came up, they could just go to their boss for a “special” or “emergency” appropriation. In the real world, you can’t do that, and given that this war has been going on for several years now, it’s hard to imagine one good reason why the appropriations for this war couldn’t be built into the regular national budget. (The real reason is that seperating the war funding is politically beneficial to Bush and allows him to hide the full cost of the war from the American people.) And for all that money, what have we gotten? Billions lining the pockets of government contractors, while injured veterans receive embarassingly poor health care and soldiers in the field receive embarassingly inadequate equipment.

That’s not to mention the fact that every dollar spent on our military literally is a dollar we don’t spend on domestic priorities or other foreign policy instruments. Worse still, given the budget deficit, we’re literally spending money we don’t have. King George is running up the tab for the war on the national credit card.

Instead of financing this war piecemeal and on credit, Congress should levy the taxes necessary to pay for this trillion dollar disaster. Do it now. See what type of uproar you get on both sides of the political aisle when American taxpayers feel the crushing costs of the Iraq war in their paychecks or against their stock market gains.

These bills will come due sooner or later and we’ll all pay tenfold above the already ridiculous financial investment in the war. Instead of financing this war piecemeal and on credit, Congress should levy the taxes necessary to pay for this trillion dollar disaster. Do it now. See what type of uproar you get on both sides of the political aisle when American taxpayers feel the crushing costs of the Iraq war in their paychecks or against their stock market gains.

There is another significant cost lurking right beneath the surface. This war has inspired literally thousands of new terrorists in Iraq and around the world. For decades, we will feel the effects of Bush’s erosion of America’s reputation and standing throughout the world, particularly in the Muslim world, where we are alienated from even our closest allies. We haven’t made nearly enough progress in stabilizing Afghanistan or hunting down the original Al-Qaeda members (as opposed to those knockoffs we created in Iraq). We have gone from being a somewhat beloved superpower into being loathed by most of the world, and it ain’t a case where if they hate you it means you’re doing something right, as some might believe. We can’t possibly know the full extent of what this war has cost us in foreign policy or national security terms, but sadly, I am certain that we’ll all feel those costs one way or another.

But let’s put aside those effects of the War and all the other horrors that have flowed from the battlefields. Right now, the cost falls hard on the brave men and women who serve in our nation’s military. We’ve asked a lot from them. So many of those who cheated death came home with wounds, physical or emotional, that may never heal. So many of them are so young. Each and every story is sad, and yet the closest most of us come is just hearing or reading their stories. I spend a lot of time simply reading the stories of soldiers recently, those who died, and those who have been injured, and those who are just still there, and those who were lucky enough to make it home. For instance, this excellent feature consisting of letters from soldiers who died in combat, recently published in Newsweek. Stuff like this, it literally makes me cry. A horrible human cost is being inflicted on a very small number of Americans while the rest of us live our lives giving up nothing in return. I won’t go fight in this war, and I don’t expect that most Americans will. But the least we can do is pay attention to their stories.

We can do one other thing as a nation, too. We can take moral responsibility for the sacrifices our soldiers have made in our name. It’s time to stop buying the Bush administration line that we’re all sacrificing something in the name of this unjust war, because frankly, most of us are not. It doesn’t matter to me who is to blame or which parties benefit politically. We need to push our political leaders to find a way out. Enabling this war to continue isn’t “standing behind our troops,” who would die to the last man or woman for this country if they were told it was necessary. Supporting our troops means admitting that our civilian leaders, not our soldiers, made a grave mistake. And that we, the American people, made a mistake letting them do it. Admitting the mistake is the first step. And then the next step is bringing the troops home.

Ann Coulter is an utter disgrace to the conservative political movement in this country. I support the principle of free speech, but her use of the slur “faggot” on national television isn’t merely “politically incorrect” or justifiable as “edgy humor.” It doesn’t even qualify as an (wildly inappropriate and extreme) partisan political attack on John Edwards. It is simply hateful and sad. Shame on those in attendance who applauded and laughed at her remarks. I feel dirty even lending extra publicity to this story but I couldn’t just let it go by without remark. That she will reap a windfall from all the books she sells because of this controversy demeans us all.

A few weeks back, I blogged on one Chicagoan’s novel idea to make Chicago a little greener — a tax on shopping bags. I thought that one of the best aspects of this concept was that it saves businesses money. Plastic bags may be cheap individually, but are a major expense if you churn through thousands a day. And yet only a few stores (Whole Foods, for instance), advocate the re-use of bags (or, alternatively, the use of canvas or other bags to tote your goodies home). Think of how many times in a day you’re given a bag you just don’t need — buying a soda at CVS or a coffee at Starbucks or a box of cereal you could just as easily carry home from Jewel. The problem is, you just don’t think about it because it doesn’t cost you anything and it doesn’t seem to cost the store anything. It’s a hidden cost, though. It took oil and energy to make that plastic bag, and it’ll take many many years for the bag to decay when you throw it away.

Anyways, I read a few weeks back that IKEA, bane of my existence and also one of my favorite places to shop in the universe, has announced it will impose a small charge for every bag a customer uses. But if you BYOB(ag), you don’t need to pay the charge. (Since IKEA customers believe it is worth struggling with Allen wrench for nine hours to assemble a bookcase with a funny Swedish name in order to save $50, the bag charge will probably not go unnoticed.) And with the amount of business they do and the amount of bags their customers use, IKEA’s change won’t just impact the environment — it’ll show up on their bottom-line as well.

…

A random digression: IKEA’s identity and brand is clearly infused with its Swedish roots. When I think of IKEA, I think efficient and minimal, but also modern and sleek. And, because I’ve put together many IKEA products , immense frustration. Between the obscure diagrams with the little man on it and the stupid Allen wrench, I have no idea why I torture myself shopping at IKEA. (When I assembled my bed, I got to the last step before I realized I had done most of it completely backwards and would need to take it all apart and start over.) And yet, when I look at my bed or dresser I feel some little sense of satisfaction knowing that I (sort of) built it with my own two hands.

One time, I found myself wondering what IKEA would be like if it were created by the Irish instead of the Swedes. Would they incorporate time for a drink into the assembly instructions? Would they sell Jameson and Michael Collins in their store cafes instead of swedish meatballs and various smoked fish products? What type of witty Irish names would they use for their products? Could you buy a Craic Bookshelf or a Padraig Couch or a Slainte Standing Lamp? Would peat moss and scratchy wool replace particle board as the most common materials? Clearly, I have too much free time, but I think there could be a viable business model here.

This is a missive to those of you who 1) read this blog and 2) posted comments in the last two weeks. I had a real nasty problem with ’spam comments’ on the Web site in the last few months. Thus, I had set my email to automatically kill any ‘comment approval’ emails that came from the software that runs this lovely little corner of the Internets. Unfortunately, Gmail used no discretion and I wasn’t responsible in checking the comments section on the site’s administration page. Thus, several worthy comments have been languishing in non-approved status. I pledge that when I return from my sabbatical next week, I’ll be more diligent in approving comments as they are posted if you are more diligent in squawking back at me. Hooray for comments!

(P.S. I already got hooked up with some spam filtering plug-in that works with WordPress, the software that runs this site, but it isn’t 100% foolproof — if it were, I would definitely permit all comments to be posted without my approval. If you know how to prevent all the spam without deleting it manually, please shoot me an email. Gracias.)