Election Day

Wow, that was more interesting than I thought it would be.

Daley was re-elected with 71% of the vote. Scandals did hurt him – he won with 83% four years ago. He had no real opposition, Dorothy Brown (current Clerk of Courts) was a token opposition stand-in, and “Doc” Walls, former aide to Mayor Harold Washington, is extremely far Left, only gets 9% even here. Hell, even I couldn’t vote for him, if he had his way with affordable housing policy the condo I am buying would be illegal. He wants to ban the conversion of apartment buildings and require the construction of two affordable units for every market rate unit, or something like that. It wouldn’t create more housing, it would make sure that nothing got built at all, ever. The building where we're looking at buying, with smaller units going down into the $160s or so, provides a gateway to homeownership for all kinds of working/lower middle class people who would be priced out of the market otherwise. The solution is more housing, not less. If we want more affordable housing (and we do), the city should subsidize construction of more affordable units.

But downticket, big things were afoot. Here in the 32nd we forced our banally evil alderman into a runoff, anyway, holding him to 47%. Natarus, the downtown alderman since 1971, was defeated by an Irish kid named Brendan O’Reilly or something. Downtown’s population has swelled by about 100,000 people allegedly. Since there are supposed to be 60,000 to a ward, this will now be a huge, bizarre ward until it can be broken up after the next census. So the 42nd (Loop, Near North etc) probably has 90,000 residents or so right now. But only about 12,500 people voted there.

Hell, Daley won with 317,000 in a city of 3 million – so, probably 20% of eligible voters. Chicago, thy name is Apathy. Still, most wards look like they had 9,000-10,000 votes cast, lending support to my theory that too many people live in the 42nd.

2nd ward (South Loop, Near South) also has a heck of a lot of voters, and the incumbent, Haithcock, trails challenger Fioretti 28%-20%. If Fioretti wins the runoff, it will mean that the oldest Black ward in the city has gone yuppie – inevitable, maybe, but still a surprise. This reduces the Black Caucus to 20 or 19, I’m not sure which. After census 2010, which will result in a shift of ward boundaries toward the denser, highrise areas downtown, they may drop to around 18 out of 50 depending on the gerrymandering. Big, big demographic changes are taking place here.

3 aldermen were defeated outright, including obviously the woman caught taking bribes a few weeks back and saying “most politicians are hos” on tape. Sort of wish I'd been blogging at the time - she was just priceless. The incident apparently did not sit well with 68% of her constituents, who voted for other candidates, including the former cop who won the majority. 11 or 12 other aldercreatures will probably face a runoff. Runoffs do not favor incumbents here. Haters will be pumped and show up in droves. Supporters are discouraged this morning, key players like developers will hedge their bets now. Most runoff races had 3 or more candidates on the ballot, now it will be an up or down referendum on the incumbent. Look for 8 of the 12 incumbents to lose, resulting in a turnover of 11 (as opposed to 3 four years ago). Not sure which way I lean in many of the disputed races, but my suspicion here is that generally change is good.

Daley’s budgets will still pass 50-0 or 49-Preckwinkle. But development patterns will be impacted a lot. Look for fewer teardowns and constructions in Bucktown (32nd) while the South Loop etc (2nd) will explode over the next three years, slowly transforming into the Upper East Side, only with crime. It is Chicago, still. Due to the odd timing of Chicago elections, the census data will not be ready for Feb. 2011 and changes won’t take place until 2015 when they are already outdated. But the 42nd and 2nd will probably be broken up into 3-5 wards for that election, when we choose Daley’s successor and a wealthy, dense city core will be assuming a much larger role in city politics.

Parking Circle of Hell

There's nowhere to park legally by the city tow yard on a Tuesday night. Seriously, you just beach your ride somewhere in the general vacinity of the traffic circle and get out saying, "well, at least they won't tow it very far . . . "

The tow yard is like stepping out of the city and into backwoods Arkansas or somewhere like that, only cold. Backwoods Siberia?. It's quiet at night. The lot itself is a fenced off, secure yard with automated gates. In order to get access, you need to go up the rickety wooden stairs to a building that looks like a collection of aluminum trailers welded haphazardly together. It's one of these "temporary" facilities thrown together 50 years ago and then never replaced, or maintainede, or noticed unless your car gets towed. Or stolen and lit on fire, which was the case with Trope's old Civic.

The crowd was interesting. Mostly Latin, including three or four sullen men who looked like they were usually asleep at this hour ahead of early morning shifts at horrible mind destroying jobs, and a gaggle of giggling girls with brightly colored cell phones. Also ahead of us were two young, angry Eastern European cab drivers, an enormous, heavy lidded black man, a couple Pakistanis and a lost, yuppie looking white couple. The line was held up for a while as the cabbies argued with a bored looking Puerto Rican woman barely out of high school about various reasons why he should be allowed to pick up his car without paying for his parking tickets. Eventually they stormed out, stormed back in again, and finally were issued a yellow card to get on the lot.

When it was finally our turn, about 45 minutes on, we told the uninterested young woman why we were there: the Arson Unit had called us to let us know that what was left of our stolen car had been located at the scene of a fire on the West Side, about a week after it vanished from the street in front of our house, and that it was towed here. Trope showed the woman her title and she signed and stamped some papers disinterestedly. Then she told us we couldn't see the car.

Apparently, she said, they didn't really know it was ours because the VIN number on the dash board was no longer readable due to fire. They wouldn't let us near the car until a police officer had been out to read the VIN off the engine block. I didn't understand the issue.

"They know it's our car. They called us," I said. She said no, the car had just been identified by our plates. Apparently there was the possibility that it was someone else's car, with our plates on it. Until they were sure, they couldn't hand the car over to the insurance company so we could get paid.

"Well let us look at it, and we'll tell you if it's our car." But if it wasn't ours, it wouldn't be appropriate for us to be poking around the remains. The only way to tell was to wait for the police to find the VIN.

"But why the hell would somebody put our plates on an identical car and light it on fire?" [Antisocial personality disorder?] Another rhetorical question I would never have imagined I'd have cause to ask for real. Ah, the stimulation of city life.

Goodbye, Rummy

Tempering (slightly) my joy at this week's political events is the realization that the Chicago area's influence on the national stage has dimmed a bit. The resignation of Donald Rumsfeld and the end of Dennis Hastert's reign as Speaker of the House has removed two big local players from the national stage. Rumsfeld used to hold the House seat now occupied by Democrat Melissa Bean, back before the Earth cooled. And Hastert represents an exurban district out on the fringes of "Chicagoland." Both brought to the national scene some of the hallmarks of Old Chicago politics - the refusal to give a straight answer to a simple question, opting instead to speak in elliptical koans ("there are known knowns...known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.") For comparison see any speech Richie Daley has ever made. Also, their use of corruption and cronyism to reward friends and punish enemies is pure Chicago politics-as-blood-sport.

He may have been a mover and shaker in the Conservative Movement, but Speaker Hastert's big contribution to Illinois has been to brink home tons and tons of "earmarked" cash to the state, including federal funding for CTA improvements and other regional transportation issues. In fact, his greatest contribution to himself was probably buying up a bunch of land in the exurbs, securing funding for a new highway through the area, and then selling the land at a $2 million profit. So don't cry for Denny in his retirement.

The new crop of Chicago influence includes new subcommittee chairs Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr, who, tasting the new power they will wield in Washington, will now decline to run for mayor, ensuring another term for Daley, who's been Boss since 1989. He stands to eclipse his fater as Chicago's longest-serving chief executive. And Illinois Senator Dick Durbin will probably end up as #2 guy in the Senate, which gives him a lot of clout, but it's no Speakership and he's from downstate anyway. He may be helpful in advancing an urban agenda. But I doubt he will do much to reverse the net outflow of tax money from the City, which persists in spite of the widespread suburbanite faith that the cash flows the other way.

But our biggest splash on the national scene is likely to be Democratic Congressional Campaign Comittee chair Rahm Emanuel. Already he's claiming credit for the Democrats' new electoral clout and jockeying fo ra leadership position. The "Netroots," ar already criticising him as a cronyist, insider power player who doesn't listen to grassroots activists and prefers to run handpicked machine-style centrists to real reformers. I'm not sure that's completely fair, but he did get his start with Daley's machine. What can I say? Anybody from here who makes a splash on the national scene is bound to do so as a villain. Chicago's fresh out of heroes.

Guy Fawkes Day

So I went out to the suburbs today to volunteer with the GOTV operation for Tammy Duckworth, a candidate for the House in Illinois' 6th Congressional district. The 6th is mostly mile after mile of suburban sprawl, strip mall after strip mall along 6 lane "arteries" surrounded by characterlesws subdivisions. It's the part of America I like the least. So why the hell was I out there, butting my head into an election way the hell out in Republicanland?

First of all, there are only three, or possibly four, competitive House districts in Illinois. When it was redistricted in 2002, there were nine safe Democratic seats, and ten somewhat less safe Republican seats. Since then, longtime GOP incumbant Phil Crane was ousted from what had once been a suburban stronghold (before Crane, the seat was held by Donald Rumsfeld). The seat has become the key "swing" seat, but honestly the Democrat, software millionaire Melissa Bean, is a little too conservative for me to actively support.

My own district is represented by Luis Gutierrez, and is not contested. In terms of state and local politics, my choices are abysmal. For Governor, our incumbant Democrat, Rod Blagojevich ("G Rod" to almost everyone), will almost certainly be indicted soon on various hiring fraud and corruption charges. His Republican opponent, Treasurer Judy Barr Topinka, was a close associate and ally of previous governor George Ryan, who is already in jail. The other hotly contested local race is for County Board President. Longtime President John Stroger won the primary over reformer Forrest Claypool, in spite of the fact that President Stroger had just had a stroke and was in a coma. Since Stroger couldn't stand for office, the party leadership conducted an intense search for a new candidate, and came up with . . . Stroger's son, Chicago Alderman Todd "Toddler" Stroger. While Toddler does have some experience in government, as a state Representative and later an Alderman (appointed to a vacancy by Mayor Daley), his big qualification for office is being able to hold together his father's coalition of political forces, a remnant of what used to be called the Chicago "machine." I'm not really a big fan of those people, but his Republican opponant is anti-gay, anti-abortion zealot Tony Pereica, whom I probably wouldn't vote for if his opponent were Saddam Hussein.

So if I wanted to do something this election cycle, it would have to be far afield.

The other reason I was out in the 6th district is that I'll always feel connected to this particular area even though I'd never really want to live there: I was born there, and lived in the town of Wheaton until I was four. Our town wasn't that sprawling, we had sidewalks and were a few minutes walk from a train station and a commercial street with storefronts right on the sidewalk, just like you find in the city and in traditional small towns.

The neighborhood I walked today had sidewalks, but no shops or restaurants were within reasonable walking distance. There was a park that backed up on a gulf course, a sprawling one story elementary school, and a nice looking new Public Library. For some reason, the tiny square of suburbia that we worked was back on the city grid, with street names taken from my own neighborhood, perhaps a dozen miles due east - Fullerton, Montana, Altgeld, Nevada, Schubert, Wrightwood, etc. These houses were not so far apart as in newer sprawl, and many of them were looking sort of run down. And in a race featuring so much demagoguing on immigration, I found a surprising number of Latino, Vietnamese and Indian names on my roster.

I don't know if we did much good - the people seemed sick of all the attention, since at this stage in the campaign we were only contacting previously identified supporters to encourage them to vote on Tuesday, give them directions to their polling place, and ask if they needed a ride (ridiculous in this case, since the polling place was less than half a mile away for most of the houses we visited). And we were asked to stop knocking once the Bears game started and just leave campaign literature and directions. Considering how badly the Bears got their asses handed to them by the previously hapless Dolphins, my guess is that was a real good call. The last thing the Duckworth campaign needs to be associated with is a historic, ignominous defeat.

Other than Iraq, I mean. The reason the Democrats think they can pick up a seat that's been represented since my toddlerhood by Henry Hyde is that their candidate, Tammy Duckworth, is an Iraq war veteran who lost both her legs while serving as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. She's studied international relations and worked with Rotary to wipe out disease in the developing world, campaigned against indoor air pollution, etc etc whatever, but everyone knows she's running because of the war, and because Party people believe enough Republicans might be sick enough of the war to switch sides or stay home on election day. My unscientifically small sample size (I still have family out there) suggests they just might have a point.

But even if we gained the seat, could we keep it? It seems to me that long term, we're going to gain much of DuPage County. Not only is the population changing and growing less overwhelmingly white, but the older parts seem to be experiencing a bit of decline, and if I've learned one thing from knockng on doors, it's that the shabbier looking houses are more likely to have Democrats living in them. Underneath all the bullshit talking points, the class struggle persists.

When I got home (and woke up from a long nap) Trope pointed out that it was November 5, and wanted to watch V for Vendetta. The film is based on a graphic novel, based on the story of Guy Fawkes, "the only man who ever went to Parlaiment with honest intentions," as the British say. Actually he was trying to blow it up. Fortunately democracy offers us the opportunity to accomplish the same goal nonviolently every couple years. I hope we take advantage of it Tuesday.

people in glass houses always have to wear pants

I think I understand something. For the past few years I've wondered what the hell these Christian Right people are talking about when they claim that allowing same sex marriage would undermine or threaten traditional marriage. I mean, I'm in a traditional heterosexual marriage, and I don't see how two gay men getting married would threaten my marriage, or really affect me at all, unless it's somebody I know and I have to buy another damn gift.

But then the other day the next big sex scandal broke, involving the leading evangelical pastor who I'm always going to remember as "Big Gay Ted." All the while he's been preaching against the evils of abortion, drugs, homosexuality and the secular world (not to mention doing battle to rid Colorado Springs of the conspiracy of witches and evil spirits he calls "Control" - you couldn't make this shit up) he was meeting with a gay prostitute in Denver to have sex and score crystal meth.

This is so typical it's become a cliche. But why? Here was my first clue:

No Christian should be surprised that Haggard may have given in to his perverted thoughts and turned them into perverted actions. It’s a temptation we all face. - LaShawn Barber, Christo-fascist blogger

Huh? And then I relized, gay marriage doesn't threaten me because I'm not a closeted homosexual. But for somebody like Big Gay Ted, it seems like a terrible threat. Here he is, pretending to have a "normal" family life like he's always been told he should, with a wife and kids and a big house in sprawlville. He's had to make sacrifices to maintain the illusion, and it's been hard for him but he's done it. And now some secular humanist like myself wants to come along and say, "it's okay to be gay?" If society normalized other kinds of relationships besides the kind he's faking, how's he going to keep his sham of a pretend life together? If everyone else in his situation doesn't struggle like he does to be "normal," it makes it that much harder for him to do it. Instead of admiring him for trying to do the right thing, people like me are just going to mock him for being a hypocrite.

And mock, we will. From the great Harper's piece I linked to above:

Pastor Ted soon began upsetting the devil's plans. He staked out gay bars, inviting men to come to his church [I'll bet he did!]; his whole congregation pitched itself into invisible battles with demonic forces, sometimes in front of public buildings.

And check out the decor at his megachurch:

Each point directs the eye to a contemporary painting, most depicting gorgeous, muscular men—one is a blacksmith, another is bound, fetish-style, in chains—in various states of undress. My favorite is The Vessel, by Thomas Blackshear, a major figure in the evangelical-art world.[2] Here in the World Prayer Center is a print of The Vessel, a tall, vertical panel of two nude, ample-breasted, white female angels team-pouring an urn of honey onto the shaved head of a naked, olive-skinned man below. The honey drips down over his slab-like pecs and his six-pack abs into the eponymous vessel, which he holds in front of his crotch. But the vessel can't handle that much honey, so the sweetness oozes over the edges and spills down yet another level, presumably onto our heads, drenching us in golden, godly love. Part of what makes Blackshear's work so compelling is precisely its unabashed eroticism; it aims to turn you on, and then to turn that passion toward Jesus.

Hee. It's like I always say when I'm walking through the neighborhood critiquing the horrible Modernist condos: "People in glass houses always have to wear pants."

So my point, if I still have one at all, is that I suspect there is a lot of repressed sexuality going on among the "God Hates Fags" crowd. It's like, they can't handle who they really are, so they have to inflict it on the rest of us by disguising their psychosexual garbage as religion and dragging it out into the public sphere. Wouldn't it just be easier on everybody if they would just admit who they are and be themselves?

This means you, Fred Phelps. Go for it girl, release your inner drag queen and let that bitch dance!

Until then, nothing like a sex scandal to cheer you up on a cold November afternoon.

politics and pickup trucks

Yesterday I took an online poll by Polling Point. They asked me what I thought about the candidates for Governor (ugh) and Congress. They also asked questions about what I thought about my Senators, which is weird since neither of those guys is up for re-election next week. They asked how much money we make, whether we are married, whether we attend religious services regularly, and whether we have family in the military. All fairly interesting demographic questions, I suppose, although our answers make us look quite a bit more conservative than we actually are. But so far, so good, as far as survey design. They asked if I keep a handgun in the house or garage, which is politically interesting, but since that would be illegal in my city, I wouldn't have admitted to it even if it were true (I don't, because I don't believe in arming yourself for self defense - that's what we pay cops, judges, and jailers for. Under normal conditions, the state has an absolute monopoly on the legitimate use of force).

Then they asked if I own a pickup truck. Odd, I think. The gun question is not just cultural, but political. There is, after all, a sizeable movement in this country to ban or restrict ownership of guns. But as far as I know, there is no movement afoot to ban pickup trucks. So why ask something like that? What does it mean?

I guess they have identified pickup truck drivers as a certain demographic and want to determine how that demographic is politically different from the population as a whole. If so, I'm thinking somebody thinks strange things are going on with this demographic, considering the new tactics being used to try to sell pickup trucks in recent weeks.

Specifically Chevy pickups. There was a TV ad that ran during the baseball playoffs featuring John Mellancamp singing "this is our country" and a backdrop of footage from recent American history. The moon landing, Iwo Jima and Martin Luther King, and also 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, both the flooded city and Habitat-type people people rebuilding houses.

Several people I know, including Trope, find this ad exceptionally offensive, since it uses footage of catastrophes in which people died to sell trucks. While I can see this point, I don't really feel it; when I saw the ad the first time, I actually laughed at the non-sequiter of it all. Call me Irony Boy.

But thinking about it now, it's just another attempt to use patriotism to sell consumer crap, a tradition in this country going back at least a century. What's interesting is the form patriotism seems to be taking in the ad: identification of victimhood, suffering, hard times, a struggling once-proud auto industry, and American patriotism. In other words, the image is of a proud nation kicked around and suffering, a nation of losers clinging to memories of better days and hope for the future. A nation of Cubs fans. And this identity is supposed to resonate with the alleged pickup truck demographic. Apparently the song is a hit - Mellancamp played it live before Game 2 of the World Series in Detroit.

This seems radically different from the vision of American power that was used to convince so many people to run out and buy Hummers a few years back. Has their been such a big change in our national self-conception over such a short period?

Either the ad is grossly mis-targeted and won't sell any trucks, or this is going to be a pretty good election year for the Democrats. Identification with the downtrodden is the essence of liberalism. Identification with power is the essence of the Right.

Happy Spam

Alas, spam has started to slip through the filter of my Yahoo account. Last week I opened what turned out to be a piece of spam pushing some stock deal. But after the obnoxious, colorful message was this poetic gem:

The answer was obvious. Hit the jump for pictures and a video of the entire process. Hit the jump for more photos of the carnage. Wow, they make some money over there. People think I'm a manwhore already. Was my Mac playing podcasts all by itself now? Since he moved the poor guy's been using a tin can attached string that he jammed into the miniplug.

While most mad scientists prefer harsh materials like steel and electrophoresed kitten blood, you can be original by making novel use of more classic materials like felt and string. While most mad scientists prefer harsh materials like steel and electrophoresed kitten blood, you can be original by making novel use of more classic materials like felt and string. To their chemically-induced point of view, the controllers have plenty of room for vibration in the handles.

Meh, maybe I'd skip the meal. We buy a lot of crap.

We are actually a little disappointed at the news and would much prefer a smaller version of the notebook.So why does my alarm need a date at all? We guess it could be a nice Skype introduction for the parents who just got used to their cell phone layout, but we will probably buy it out of pity for the Apple wannabe.

Sure, it can be produced as a Macbook Pro. Hit the jump for pictures and a video of the entire process. You can't possibly dial this phone without looking.

Just check out those hollow caverns of wasteful nothingness.

The answer was obvious. Could it possibly be worth that kind of money? To their chemically-induced point of view, the controllers have plenty of room for vibration in the handles. And editor who also skims.

Seriously, we would like to see the technology in athletic apparel, so people can kick your ass while running at night, too.

You might want to check out the Sketch Furniture Project by FRONT.

For its own peace of mind?

be it a little slower and less fierce than we are eventually hoping for. Snark aside, we were a little one sided in covering his coverage. What do all you readers think? Doesn't seem worth it. We are actually a little disappointed at the news and would much prefer a smaller version of the notebook.

Rock on. Did someone sit down and write this? Was it randomly generated by some kind of spambot?

After months of cocooning in crusty sullen silence, this is the kind of thing that makes me want to write again.