Event Fri Oct 23 2009
Saturday is International Day of Climate Action, where people around the world will gather at various demonstrations to support the need for an international climate treaty and to raise awareness about climate change. You can check out the various scheduled events around Chicago on this map. There are two events worth noting:
At noon, join bicyclists for the International Climate Action Day bike ride. Bicyclists will meet at Daley Plaza at Dearborn and Washington. Bicyclists will gather for a picture and ride to the Fisk Generating Station at 1111 W. Cermak Rd., where members of Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and other organizations will be protesting the coal-fired plant, one of the worst polluters in Chicago.
— Sheila Burt /
Event Mon Sep 21 2009
"Sometimes, people need help. And when people are asking for help, they normally want it." Darlene Horton says this to Mechanics just outside the James R. Thompson Center Friday afternoon. Dozens of community activists and supporters are crowded around the Center, getting ready to attend a legislative hearing on an issue they all view as urgent: legislative reforms to protect children with incarcerated parents. These children, they argue, are too often left alone, struggling to understand what happened to their parents.
On Friday afternoon, the rally brought together advocates and community leaders to discuss reform for the nearly 90,000 children who have an incarcerated parent, according to the Community Renewal Society, a social justice group that organized the rally. Afterwards, advocates packed the 16th floor of the Center to attend a legislative hearing on the issue. Mechanics spent a few hours at the rally and hearing to listen to some stories.
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— Sheila Burt /
Event Fri Sep 18 2009
I find it hard to believe anyone would argue with me when I say that Lake Michigan is one of Chicago's great assets, if not the greatest. Unfortunately, nothing is immune to the effects of pollution these days, and that includes our beautiful lakefront. Luckily, tomorrow morning, you can do your part in saving the city's greatest natural resource by participating in the Alliance for the Great Lakes' annual Adopt-a-Beach clean-up, starting at North Avenue Beach at 10:30 a.m. Congressman Mike Quigley and Marc Miller, director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, are expected to attend.
Though things like global warming are proving hard to fight, hopefully, people can do their small part by cleaning up after themselves, and oh, not dumping their crap on the beaches or in the harbors. The above photo (note the dead fish, floating in filth) was taken this afternoon at Belmont Harbor, while the below photo is from last year's clean-up. People, how hard is it to bring your underwear with you after you leave the beach? Full disclosure: I volunteered with the Alliance a few times in the office last year.
— Sheila Burt /
As we mentioned yesterday, President Obama's "conversation/listening" tour rolled into Chicago Thursday, with members of his Cabinet stopping by the city to discuss ways of making this area more sustainable. Sustainable is a loaded term these days, but to members of Obama's Cabinet, it means sitting in less traffic, having easy access to places, such as daycares and grocery stores, via public transportation, "green" building and a more rapid train system throughout the country. Mechanics listened in on the discussion, organized by the Metropolitan Planning Council, Thursday afternoon and jotted down some notes. The tour is headed to Denver, LA, Seattle, Atlanta and then back to D.C. So, Mechanics readers, what do you think: What would make Chicago a more sustainable city? Here are some thoughts from Obama's Cabinet:
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— Sheila Burt /
In July, speaking at an Urban and Metropolitan Policy Roundtable, President Obama announced an initiative to take a long, hard look at metropolitan development -- ways cities have failed and how planning officials can look beyond the concrete and streetlights to improve the quality of life. "For too long," Obama said, "federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development. And we've been keeping communities isolated when we should have been bringing them together."
At the roundtable, Obama recalled his time spent living in LA, New York, Boston, and Chicago, adding, "I received my greatest education on Chicago's South Side, working at the local level to bring about change in those communities and opportunities to people's lives...And that experience also gave me an understanding of some of the challenges facing city halls all across the country."
This Chicago-centric experience has lead to a "conversation" tour, kicking off tomorrow in Chicago, where members from Obama's Cabinet will visit cities and regions across the country to discuss sustainable and responsible development.
The Metropolitan Planning Council, a non-profit dedicated to creating "sustainable and prosperous" growth in the Chicago area, is hosting the luncheon, "Connecting the Dots: Metropolitan Chicago's Path to Prosperity," tomorrow from noon to 1:45 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency Ballroom (West Tower), 151 E. Wacker Dr.
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— Sheila Burt /
Event Sat Aug 29 2009
When you hear the word "crafts" you may be tempted to think of balsa-wood Santas painted in tempera, or maybe that potholder you made on a square steel loom in 2d grade. If so, you are way out of the loop on what the art genre so referred to has become, and you owe it to yourself to hike up to Evanston this weekend for the 25th Annual American Crafts Exposition being held in the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion on the lovely Northwestern University campus. The third-largest show of its type in the entire country, the expo features a couple hundred of the finest artists currently working in glass, ceramics, wood, metals, textiles, and mixed media, among others.
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— Jeff Smith /
Event Wed Jun 03 2009
Doing anything special during your lunch break tomorrow? Consider fighting for the little guy/gal. A rally against "doomsday" budget cuts is scheduled for tomorrow outside the Thompson Center at 171 W. Randolph St. at 11:30 a.m. Activists will be protesting budget cuts that were approved by the Illinois General Assembly on May 31. The budget cuts will have an "awful human toll," on all sorts of sectors, according to this nice breakdown from Progress Illinois. The rally is timed to make an impact just before a noon meeting between Gov. Quinn and legislative leaders.
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— Sheila Burt /
Chicago Tue May 26 2009
I recently had the opportunity to go to a town hall meeting hosted by the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and listen to a panel of prominent journalists (pictured left, photo from IFC) discuss why media matters. The town hall meeting is part of IFC's pro-social initiative "Make Media Matter" which raises awareness about the vital role media plays in our lives, society and world.
In the wake of the economic crisis and political unraveling in Chicago, media is more important than ever. As Attorney General Lisa Madigan boldly stated in her introduction to the panel, "media makes democracy work; without it, who would hold the government accountable for their actions?"
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— Kaitlin Olson /
Event Tue May 19 2009
Going out to eat tonight? Consider dining at a restaurant participating in the Share a Meal program sponsored by the Community Shares of Illinois. If you dine at any of these restaurants, including Atlas Cafe in Logan Square and Ann Sather Restaurant in Lakeview, a portion of your bill goes to the member organizations of Community Shares. Some of the benefiting organizations include the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, ACLU of Illinois and the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network. You can also donate virtually using PayPal.
— Sheila Burt /
Chicago Sat May 09 2009
I was fortunate to be able to spend a little time at Windpower 2009, the just-concluded 4-day expo at McCormick Place. There was surprisingly scant local coverage of the world's largest windpower conference being held here in the Windy City, of all places, so I'm posting these notes, because it was an amazing event. From a gathering that, longtime attendees told me, had about 200 people here 10 years ago, and only 1,000 attendees as late as 2001, this has grown into a massive conference, sprawling across the entire South Hall of the expo center. According to The American Wind Energy Association, the conference had 23,200 attendees, close to double the size of last year's gathering, and over 1,200 exhibiting companies.
In keeping with the green theme of the conference, I took a multimodal route to get there: I biked to the Metra, took the train downtown, walked to a bus stop, then took the CTA to McCormick Place. I was glad I made the effort. Any policymaker, activist, reporter, or general member of the public who stopped by this show would have come away convinced that wind is no longer, in any fashion, an "alternative" energy source or science fiction. Rather this is a burgeoning industry with tremendous growth ahead.
In addition to the five governors who came by the conference, speakers included Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, financier T. Boone Pickens, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu (via video). Illinois Governor Pat Quinn used the conference to announce an agreement by which the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (CMS) will purchase all of its energy for facilities in the capitol from wind-generated sources, through the city of Springfield.
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— Jeff Smith /
Event Tue Apr 28 2009
Meetings, summits, conferences. These are where catastrophic problems are discussed and noble solutions are alluded to. That tradition was upheld on Monday at the UIC-hosted and city-sponsored Fifth Annual Richard J. Daley Urban Forum cautiously entitled "Global Economic Recovery: Cities Lead the Way."
The three-hour event boasted 30 mayors from cities around the world contributing their hard-knocks experiences amidst the global recession. Much of the dialogue revolved around such big ideas as bureaucratic reform, infrastructure investment, and educational improvement -- all with very little specificity attached.
While Mayor Richard M. Daley, who Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution affectionately referred to as the "dean of American mayors," may have presided over markedly higher budgets each year, he confidently assured the forum that urban success will be rooted in "cutting government spending," and "looking at outsourcing." Yet it was Mayor Hanna Birna Kristjansdottir of Reykjavik, Iceland, who described how she and the city council agreed to a pay cut as a measure of demonstrating what needed to be done across the board. From the back of the room, it was hard to see if the 50 aldermen in the front row were stroking their chins in a eureka moment.
Vice President Joe Biden topped off the chorus of international voices in support of significant federal reinvestment in the urban landscape by using stimulus spending items as bullet points. After rattling off a stump speech of spending measures (all of which could be reviewed at recovery.gov), he expressed his belief that American cities will soon gain a technological edge in the global economy by trading in "smokestacks for stethoscopes."
From the bowels of the predictable rhetoric and the guaranteed applause lines about wanting Chicago to host the Olympics in 2016, a few general themes did emerge. Tourism dollars wind up finding their ways to places that spend money on beautification projects and big box infrastructure improvements, making it clear that such expenditures go beyond short-term patronage.
Secondly, business partnerships must guide the educational development in this country through secondary school grants and product development in the universities. Norbert Riedel, a spokesperson for the Baxter International, discussed how partnering with several Chicago universities allowed it to make headway in adult stem cell research, anti-counterfeiting, and product safety. These relationships went onto to produce high-paying jobs in which companies groomed the work force to suit its needs. Gone are the days about worrying how corporate influence in the educational marketplace could corrupt the schooling process. As the Beatles once said, "All the money's gone, nowhere to go."
— Prescott Tolk /
Chicago Tue Apr 21 2009
Members of the University of Illinois at Chicago Healthcare Students Against Discrimination are planning a rally on Thursday to protest the university's decision to shut down The Center for Women and Families at Pilsen, a UIC community clinic that serves several low-income Latina women and children, within two months.
The group, along with physicians and community members, will gather in front of the Outpatient Care Clinic (OCC), 1801 W. Taylor St, at noon, and will hand over a petition with more than 1,000 signatures from UIC students, staff and community members who are against the closure.
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— Sheila Burt /
Chicago Tue Apr 21 2009
Anyone who's unsure of how politics and literature/art relate to one another effectively should consider reading Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, which is this spring's One Book, One Chicago choice.
The book follows the life of Esperanza, a young Mexican-American girl growing up in Humboldt Park, through tiny vignettes about the little things in her life that add up to a whole lot more -- hair, her age, her name, school lunches, hips.
As she matures, Esperanza witnesses the lingering effects of gangs, binding domesticity and poverty in her community and among her friends. She vows to get ahead with education and to leave Mango Street, but "to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out." Though Cisneros, a Chicago native, has a deceptively simple writing style, she gives a complex human face to the struggles of working-class families everywhere in Chicago, especially Latino families. Many of the stories, Cisneros has said, were influenced from her days teaching at Latino Youth High School.
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— Sheila Burt /
Event Tue Jan 20 2009
Follow along as we liveblog the Inauguration from Chicago and Washington, D.C. We have several correspondents on the ground, and folks watching it from here in Chicago.
(Ended at 12:35pm.)
— Andrew Huff /
Event Thu Dec 18 2008
Madison Square Garden Entertainment is hosting a speaker series entitled "The Minds That Move The World" at the Chicago Theatre.
The series will be "formatted to allow for each participant to present their thoughts on a wide range of important current events and national issues, followed by a moderated question and answer period during which the moderator can elicit additional information and insights into particularly pertinent topics of the day." Here's the schedule:
• March 11: Bill Maher and Ann Coulter
• April 1: Al Gore
• April 22: Chris Matthews interviewing Tucker Carlson, Arianna Huffington and Paul Begala
• May 28: Charlie Rose interviewing James Carville and Karl Rove
Tickets won't go on sale to the public for a couple weeks, but Gapers Block readers have access to a special presale -- use this link and use the code "GAPERS" to order tickets between now and Jan. 10.
— Andrew Huff /
