Your money at work

Last summer, Chicago earned the auspicious title of having the highest sales tax in the country when Cook County increased its share by an additonal 1 percent. This brought the city’s sales tax on everything besides groceries and medicine to 10.25 percent, and over 11 percent in the downtown area.

With Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s veto of the repeal of the tax increase in the news this week, it caused me to wonder just who gets what out of this astronomical tax. I can’t find a definitive breakdown anywhere. It seems that 5 percent goes to the state, 1.75 percent goes to Cook County, and the remaining dough goes to the city. I emailed the Tribune’s ace county/city reporter (they now cover two beats) to see what was what. He told me he had it somewhere and he’d send it along.

Hal Dardick, I’m waiting.

And now I have been forced to come up with my own breakdown:

 1. Lake Michigan Kool-Aid Fund, 3%: To combat the summer heat, the Chicago Park District and the Department of Human Services are teaming up to turn the Lake into 2.73 trillion gallons of Strawberry Koolaid.

2. Talc Fund for Streets and San Ball Scratchers, .5%: Written into their union contract, all Streets and Sanitation workers will get special talcum powder pay from June 1 through September 30.

 3. Downstate High Fructose Corn Syrup Museum, .6%: A special thank you to Archer Daniels Midland’s decades of paying off legislators and destroying the health of generations of Americans.

 4. Interest on Chicago’s Juice Loan from Oprah, 2%: If there’s anything worse than being in debt to China, it’s owing that Oprah character money. Sheesh.

5. Mary Todd Lincoln Insane Asylum, 1%: A fitting companion to the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

6. “Richard M. Daley, Mayor” Tattoo Fund, 2%: If Chicago is awarded the 2016 Olympics, we will all become property of hizzoner and will be required to get this tattoo.

 7. Cook County Jail Redecorating by Nate Berkus, 1.15%: See #4

Things we may find in Bush’s Presidential Library

Plum out, Bush sucks the soul out of the Easter Bunny

It was reported this week that former President George W. Bush raised $100 million in 100 days to build his Presidential Library in Dallas.

According to TIME, library fundraiser Mark Langdale said the Bush center will not be used to “defend or promote something that he did in the past” but will offer a record to help future generations learn about what happened during a presidency, so they make better decisions.” “History will judge,” he said.

Though I can’t speak for this “history” character he alludes to (and btw, history never glosses over my transgressions when I fuck up) most of us will be hard pressed to think of  the last eight years in a favorable light. I’m just saying is all. And I can’t help but wonder what will be in this library that could aid this American in making better decisions. I can only venture a guess:

Item One: German Chancellor Angela Merkle’s underpants. Remember his performance at the 2006 G-8 Summit when he gave her an unsolicited rub down?  My guess is they got a little drunk the night before, made out, and while Angela thought it was a one-time deal, Bush was hoping for some action for the duration of this particular trip abroad, and again was trashed, and forgot he was leader of the free world and cameras were on him. Lesson learned: One nighters do not a relationship make.

Item two: Love letters from the Saudi King. Obama may have bowed, stooped down, whatever to the Saudi King. I don’t know. I’m not an expert. But Bush clearly held this creep’s hands and strolled while they were discussing their evil plans for the world. Awesome. If Angela Merkel didn’t make Laura jealous, this had to do the trick. Lesson learned: You can let Big Oil dictate the country’s energy policy for eight years, but do not hold the hand of the Saudi King in public. You will look like an ass.

Item three: The real yellow cake Iraq bought from Niger. It turns out it wasn’t for any WMD program. Found in the pantry of Saddam’s palace, the cake mix couldn’t be imported into Iraq because of UN sanctions. They were being punished after all. Lesson learned: Going to war over cake mix sounds as ridiculous as going to war on Bush’s hunch that maybe Iraq had WMD (or maybe it was WebMD), or they had something to do with 9/11, or was it to spread democracy? . . .

Well anyway, I’m sure it will be a very big, exciting library with maybe a draft dodging exhibit, an interactive Alcoholics Anonymous installation, and perhaps even a hologram display depicting our former president’s transformation from that drunk slime at the end of the bar, to born again Christian, to one of the most influential Presidents of our time.

Book your field trip now, kids.

RIP: Dom DeLuise (1933-2009)

Dom DeLuise--a man who knew how to run his plate

Alas, it is the solemn 123rd anniversary of Haymarket

As I spend the rest of my afternoon closing all my off-shore bank accounts because Obama won’t let me hide my dough anymore, I will reflect upon the Haymarket Riot of 1886. 

And now brace yourself for a pro-Union rant. I’ll be brief but annoying.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately that if you are sick, you should stay home from work. Or if your kid is sick, you should keep said rug rat at home until he or she gets better. Just plain and simple common sense right? Actions we should all be taking, they say.

Excuse me?

This little directive brings up a TON of issues, dudes. If you have access to healthcare in the first place, and a doctor tells you, “Yo Ang, you’re sick. Stay home.” what if you don’t have this thing called paid sick leave? Or if your kid is sick and the Chicago Public Schools says he has to stay home for seven days, and again you don’t have paid time off and you can’t afford a babysitter because you make $11 an hour cleaning my office, just what in the eff are you supposed to do?

Which brings me to the much maligned labor union. Do people really think things like paid time off, child care assistance, and other benefits just fell out of the sky? Even if you never have or ever will hold a union job, you have benefitted from their existence.

Like any institution in America, Unions need to change, sure. However, I really don’t think it’s a coincidence that when union membership went down, like way down since the early 80s; real wage earnings went down, trade deficits went up, and the gap between rich and poor widened.

And yet anti-union rage never ceases to amaze me, even in the midst of this fashionable populism that seems to be everywhere. The UAW or the AFL-CIO weren’t the brains who came up with credit default swaps, crazy toxic deriatives, or told the banks to leverage the living hell out of themselves. If I recall, the unions weren’t begging for open trade with China, who let’s face it, is now America’s sugar daddy. (I still can’t believe Bill Clinton had the balls to say the Chinese were going to buy as much stuff from us, as we would from them.)

But, yes, those evil anti-American unions. Seriously, what are these bastards thinking anyway? How dare anyone think a worker should make a decent wage to maybe afford one of those cars they build, go to a doctor, have a decent place to live, send their average children to a mediocre state university, and maybe even take a vacation to the Dells once in while?

But Where Was Hottie Paul Rudd?

Michael McDonald was taking to Sears on State Street last night.

Sorry for the poor photo quality, but I just had to share.

I got off the escalator last night at Sears and was greeted by a larger-than-life Michael McDonald ala 40-Year-Old Virgin. 

After I finished laughing my ass off, I ended up being like five minutes late to my eye doctor appointment.

The WHO says porkchops still OK

Obviously not the World Health Organization, but I can't help but think of Pete Townsend when I see their acronym in print.

Is this swine flu thing a pandemic or paranoia?  How do we strike a balance between keeping the public informed, and freaking everyone out? A veritable quandary, indeed. Discuss among yourselves.

And now North America is continent non grata. We’re all travel-restricted out. Not that I was expecting foreign guests, but it is a little depressing. I guess it’s payback for us during the foot and mouth and avian flu outbreaks. China has stopped buying U.S. pork, which is ok, as long as they don’t stop buying U.S. Treasury Bills.

Badumpbump.

I just wish I could stop thinking about bacon. I’m really hungry right now.

About this flyover yesterday in NYC. Seriously? It’s really unbelievable that the deciders who thought this up couldn’t predict how terrifying this could be to a Manhattan highrise worker.  You’re at your desk, ignoring work emails, updating your blog and you see a 747 whiz by with a couple of fighter jets tailing it. Holy shit, right? And all for a photo op too?

Uh, ever hear of PhotoShop? 

Anyway, the resulting hullaballoo offered another example of how Robert Glibbs, White House Press Secretary, cannot think on his feet. His knee jerk sarcasm is doing Obama no favors. Here’s what he said yesterday when pressed about the incident:

“I was working on other things. You might be surprised to know that I don’t know every movement of Air Force One.”

Dude, ya really need to stop winging it or you may not last as long as

Dee Snider did in Clinton’s first term. Oops, I meant Dee Dee Meyer.

In honor of Talk Like Shakepeare Day

Even Mayor Daley got on this bandwagon and has ordered us all to talk like the Bard today.

Here’s my favorite sonnet which will be read at my wedding to a 19th century rich dude, in an English meadow, at dawn, with my exhausted and hungover friends looking on:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

If it’s yellow, she let’s it mellow

Chief Iron Eyes Cries at the White Man Being a Big Fat Jerk to Mother Earth

I’d like to give an Earth Day shout out to a Chicago lady who is living it, man. Sure I recycle (or at least try to in a ward that still has the b.s. Blue Bag system), have been replacing my lightbulbs with the ones that will save the world, and take public transit and walk everywhere, but this is definitely a new shade of green.

Meet Nancy Klehm, a Little Village urban ecologist who has gotten over 20 people to stop using the john, and I’m sure many more now after this Reader article hit. They all capture their “stuff” and she collects it, then makes a big strange poo brew of compost. When it’s ready, she gives it back to them for use in their own gardens. (Shhh! The location of the compost is on the downlow, because the size of it violates city ordinances.)  Everbody poops. But not everybody does it in a bucket so they can compost it and grow a nice salad and maybe a couple two three flowers.  That’s what I call committment.  

I do have flower box planting season coming up, and I always enjoy a good dropping off of the kids at the local pool, so maybe I should give it a spin. Whaddya say?

Also, three cheers for that bright yellowish-orange orb in the sky today. While sitting on the bus this morning next to a woman reading a book entitled “Thong on Fire” I had this epiphany about the oft maligned Chicago winter and how it sure likes to go down swinging in the Spring. Is it, or is it not like how at the end of a slasher film like Friday the 13th when Jason Vorhees is lying there dead (or at least you think he’s dead) and the last camper standing heaves a sigh of relief. And then, what’s that? Ohmygodhe’sgettingback up! And then wham! Dead again. Or at least until the sequel comes out  in Chicago theatres on December 1, 2009.

Anyway, keep that in mind this weekend when you’re enjoying the 80 degree temps.

I’m walking hee-yah!

Carol Anne, run to the light! Run as fast as you can! Mommy is in the light!

Though it’s a bit over three miles, I love to walk home from work once Tom Skilling, the evil warlock who holds dominion over our fair city’s weather, says it’s ok for me to do so.

Yesterday was one of those days.

 

 Walking across the Chicago River with the warm wind and the near-blinding sunshine pouring through the cracks in the skyline, I felt about 10 feet tall and pretty much like I owned the place. This is my town, right? You got a problem with that? And though the sidewalks were covered with people trying to get to wherever they got to get to, and cars and buses and trains are all around me, I had one of those moments where you feel like it’s just you and your city.

 

Everyone else just fell away.

Is murder/suicide the new black?

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people and then the people who killed the people kill themselves with the same gun they killed the people after they bought the gun when they decided they were going to kill some people. So how many of these stories have been reported in the last couple of weeks. Like 10? 50? I seriously lost count. It’s mind-bloggling.

Sheesh. I have shooting stories fatigue and summer hasn’t even started. Prompted by last year’s gun slinging summer in Chicago, the University of Chicago issued a report recently (because a report is an excellent response to such situations) finding something like four out of five homicides involved a gun, and of those murders, the vast majority were drug and gang related. And this is new information smarties? The cynical side of me thinks that at the very least gang shootings make sense on some level, compared to these bizarre mass slayings. To a gang member, it’s business right? A cease and desist order if you will, without the billable hours of an attorney. 

However, the frosted side of me wishes all guns would magically turn into lollipops and then the worst damage they could cause would be tooth decay. And then if you really wanted to get rid of someone, you’d have to tie them to a railroad track like the good ol days. (Black cape, top hat, and long mustache is optional. Diabolical wringing of the hands in anticipation while waiting for the train is not.)

For the time being, I’ve decided to boycott most crime coverage in the media (except that fascinating Pirate story, of course.) Yet, I will continue to read this neighborhood paper’s crime blotter which reports such stories as this one:

A 35-year old Chicago man started singing loudly during a performance of the musical “Rent” April 5 at 9:30 p.m. at the Oriental Theatre. Theatre security asked the man to leave, but he refused. Security notified police. . .