Hyde Park Urbanist

Chicago's Aldermen Escape Indictments for an Entire Year

Yep, it's 365 days and counting since a Chicago alderman was indicted (Isaac Carothers on May 28, 2009).  I think our city council deserves a round of applause.

The modern era record for an indictment-free city council is 17 months, 13 days during 1956-57.  That excludes, of course, those dark days of World War II when so many eager beaver prosecutors were off fighting the Nazis.  I have confidence in these men & women.  I really believe they can break that old record and would advise setting 20 months, 11 days as the over/under line.

(Photo of The Aldermen from http://www.60sgaragebands.com/aldermen.html)

Is the Gold Line More of a Shelbyville Idea?

Yeah, maybe I need to sell this a different way when I introduce the idea to people.  "Never mind.  The Gold Line's more of a..."  Not Shelbyville, though.  Oh, I know.  "The Gold Line might not be right for Chicago.  It's probably more of a Rio de Janeiro idea..."

The Transit Safety Hat

From the website Crazy Pics.  Probably available in a wide variety of colors.

Baucus Releases Health Insurance Reform Proposal

Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the finance committee, today released a bill that he called "truly a bipartisan effort".  The bill will consist entirely of a resolution supporting the efforts of America's nurses.  Baucus announced that three Republicans had signed on as co-sponsors, although several on that party's right flank complained that the bill should be amended so as not to support the efforts of illegal alien nurses or nurses who knowingly provided medical care to illegal aliens.

(Ezra Klein has been delving into the actual Baucus proposal and likes some of the details.)

Drezner on the Zombie Threat

You can banish the thinker from the UofC-- in Dan Drezner's case, by denying him tenure-- but you can't stop him from thinking like a Maroon.  Yes, we'll long regret losing a foreign policy expert who embodies the UofC approach so darned well.  Let's talk zombies.

Some Canadians embarked on a mathematical exercise concerning how best to handle a zombie outbreak.  They came to the stunning conclusion that it would need to be dealt with early and severely.  Alex Massie complained about their methodology and its lack of relevance to a real-world zombie catastrophe.  That's well & good, I suppose, but hardly a matter for a former Maroon.  No, the real question, which only Drezner has so far had the foresight to address, is how the different schools of foreign policy thought would approach the issue:

A structural realist would argue that, because of the uneven distribution of capabilities, some governments will be better placed to repulse the zombies than others. Furthermore, anyone who has seen Land of the Dead knows that zombies are not deterred by the stopping power of water. So that's the bad news. The good news is that these same realists would argue that there is no inherent difference between human states and zombie states.  Regardless of individual traits or domestic instiutions, human and zombie actors alike are subject to the same powerful constraint of anarchy...

A liberal institutionalist would argue that zombies represent a classic externality problem of... dying and then existing in an undead state and trying to cause others to do the same. Clearly, the zombie issue would cross borders and affect all states -- so the benefits from policy coordination would be pretty massive...

(N)eoconservatives would argue, zombies hate us for our freedom not to eat other humans' brains.  While the threat might be existential, accomodation or recognition are not options.  Instead, neocons would quickly gear up an aggressive response to ensure human hegemony.  However, the response would likely be to invade and occupy the central state in the zombie-affected area.  After creating a human outpost in that place, humans in neighboring zombie-affected countries would be inspired to rise up and overthrow their own zombie overlords.  Alas, while this could happen, a more likely outcone would be that, after the initial "Mission Accomplished" banner had been raised, a fresh wave of zombies would rise up, enmeshing the initial landing force -- which went in too light and was drawn down too quickly -- in a protracted, bloody stalemate. 

Right.  No expense of lives or dollars or civil rights is too large a price to pay as long as we don't have to fight them in America.

Parking Meters

Some 250 new cash-or-credit parking space payment boxes stopped working on Wednesday.  Motorists who deposited money in the machines received no receipt to display on dashboards.  Police were ordered not to ticket.  This led to a Chicago Tribune online headline:

Daley blames computers for parking meltdown

Well, I work with computers everyday.  I'm not always fond of them, but I figured they deserved a chance to refute this.  So, I fed all the inputs I could think of into my computer and asked it to assess blame.  Here's the answer:

Computer blames Daley for parking meltdown

Yeah, apparently my computer felt that the head of the administration that chose this incompetent company to own this monopoly was more to blame.

Teaching the People who will be Teaching the People who will Pay for my Social Security

Yesterday, I promised narcissism and today I'm delivering.

On Tuesday, energetic Dameka Redic from Chicago Public Schools contacted me and asked if I might be available Wednesday evening to give a talk on the history of Hyde Park.  Seems that she's in charge of student teachers at CPS and has some interns from Michigan State University in town for the week.  In the Fall, the interns will return to HP and the surrounding neighborhoods to apprentice in our public schools.  The opportunity to have a roomful of people hang on my every word doesn't come along very often, so I jumped at the chance.

So, here are a couple pictures from my talk.  Pic-left is from early in the talk.  You can tell because everyone's still awake.  Apparently, hanging on my every word takes a lot out of people.  Pic-right, I think, was taken when one of the prospective student teachers asked, "Why would anyone believe anything they read on Hyde Park Progress?"

Well, maybe it didn't happen exactly that way, but I told the truth for a long time Wednesday night, so I feel I deserve a change of pace this morning.  I do honestly look forward to these student teachers making greater Hyde Park an even better place.

Do You Belong in Hyde Park?

I just took the Facebook Quiz "What Chicago Neighborhood Do You Belong In?" and it suggested Wicker Park/Ukranian Village for me, which is just nuts.  Problem was, there weren't enough Hyde Park answers among the multiple choices, so I've tinkered with some of the questions a bit so that folks can figure out whether they belong in Hyde Park.

1.How many Jewish people do you know? A. Over 30.  B.10-30  C. 5-10  D. Fewer than 5.  E. Would you like me to introduce you to several people who are both Jewish and African-American?

2. If you had a dog, what would you name it?  A. Rover  B. Stanley  C. Wrigley  D. Spliff  E. Mearsheimer

3. What grocery store do you shop at?  A. Jewel  B. Dominick's C. Aldi  D. Whole Foods  E. Are you trying to start something here because I'll tell you what I think about that!

4. Where would you look for a date? A. Regenstein Library  B. The coffeeshop at Cobb Hall  C. What's a date?  D. Near the figs  E. None of the above.

5. How do you interact with Lake Michigan? A. I bike.  B. I run  C. I skateboard  D. I drive along it sometimes  E. I get ticketed for swimming

6. How do you deal with a parking ticket? A. Pay it right away.  B. Contest it.  C. Get it fixed.  D. Nothing until I get booted.  E. Write a letter to the editor of the Herald.

The Hyde Park answers are E in every case except question 4, of course.

Dear International Olympics Committee Observers,

Dear International Olympics Committee Observers,

Please ignore the weather during your visit to Chicago.  Not to worry.  During July and August here, it only snows about every other year.

         Cheers,      Hyde Park Urbanist

A Warning for Parents

(Via Ezra Klein) Parents, if your kids take the wrong path, you won't be able to blame Kung Fu Monkey:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.